


Wishverse 07 - Gift Horses

by Soledad



Series: If Wishes Were Horses (Wishverse) [7]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Actions Have Consequences (at least here), Andy Knows More Than People Give Him Credit For, Canon-Typical Violence, Episode rewrite: s.1.07 - Greeks Bearing Gifts, F/F, Heavy-Duty Gwen Bashing, Original Dialogue In Different Context, So Does Ianto For That Matter, So very AU, The Many Departures of Gwen Cooper
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-08
Updated: 2016-08-08
Packaged: 2018-08-07 10:51:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7712101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soledad/pseuds/Soledad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Many different ways to get rid of Gwen Cooper, while keeping the episodes as canonical as possible, including a great deal of original dialogue. A writing experiment. Not for Gwen-fans, obviously.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> Again, this one turned out very differently from my original intention, but I’m quite pleased with it.  
> The title comes from the saying we have in Hungarian. “Never look a gift horse into the mouth”. I don’t know if it exists in English or not; it means one shouldn’t criticize that which one gets for free.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
 **EPISODE 07 – GIFT HORSES, Part 1**

Sometimes Police Constable Andy Davidson thought he was cursed to run into Gwen Cooper every other week – and that related to work, too. When she’d left the police to join Torchwood, he’d been so relieved he nearly burst out in tears. Getting a new, reliable and _sane_ partner meant that he’d be able to try for Desk Sergeant, soon, perhaps even for Detective, one day. That was his long-term goal for which he’d been working in all his duty years. Without all the team reprimands earned due to Gwen’s stupidity and her blatant disregard of every rule that was ever written, now he might get the chance to make that long-nursed dream reality.

Admittedly, he’d been quite surprised that she got accepted. Andy knew more about Torchwood than most people in Cardiff. Not nearly enough to get more than a very vague idea about _what_ exactly they were doing, but enough to know that it was a high-risk job that required skills, competence and discretion. Things that Gwen Cooper never had and would never develop, even if she lived a thousand years.

If anyone, _he_ knew that. He’d suffered from her incompetence and clumsiness for years. Thankfully, though, that wasn’t his burden to bear any longer. Or it wouldn’t be, hadn’t he run into her and her new team-mates with alarming regularity.

Like right now on the building site where the workers had found a grave and some strange object no-one could identify. Andy carefully retreated out of immediate eyesight when he saw the black Torchwood SUV drive around the corner, wallowing like some top-heavy barge. The usual four people – the tall man in the outdated military greatcoat, the cute Japanese girl with the glasses and the palmtop-like high-tech device she never seemed to go anywhere without, the weaselly, dark-haired bloke that was their doctor and Gwen herself – got out of the car and went directly to the big colourful set of tents that had been put up over some of the digging.

Andy inched after them carefully. Not that anyone could have sent him away. He had every right to be there – had been posted here to guard the frigging site, in fact. But he knew if they spotted him they wouldn’t speak openly in his presence, and he really wanted to know what was going on.

He sneaked up to the big tent and peaked through the flap that had been left open for an inch or so. Team Torchwood was inspecting the mess the workers had dug up. The doctor was standing hip-deep in the grave, examining some sort of skeleton, while the others took various readings with their high-tech gizmos. Save Gwen, of course, who was just standing around, asking stupid questions as was her wont.

“Once, just once, I'd like to walk into one of these tents and find it's a party,” the leader of the team, that Jack bloke – Andy doubted that he was really a Captain of anything – mused. “You know, food, drink, people dancing, girl crying in the corner.”

Gwen paid no attention to him. She was watching the doctor working in the grave. “Is it alien?” she asked distractedly.

”And how,” her boss replied, pushing some seemingly random buttons on the weird wrist gadget he was wearing. “I'm picking up traces of ilmenite, pyroxene, and even dark matter.”

Andy’s eyes widened hearing that. Could it be that they’d found some alien spaceship or a UFO that had crashed in Cardiff decades ago? Wouldn’t that be kind of cool?

”Any idea what it is?” Gwen asked.

”Not a clue,” her boss turned the big, rusty-looking angular object this way and that. It was about the size of a vacuum cleaner. “Could be a weapon, or a really big stapler. How's our friend there?” he asked, glancing down into the grave.

Their doctor looked up at him. “She's dead.”

Harkness rolled his eyes. “Yeah, thanks, Quincy,” then he paused and asked. “ _She_?”

The doctor shrugged. “Judging by the size of her skull.”

Their boss nodded his understanding and looked at the cute Japanese chick. “How long have they been here, Tosh?”

”From the depth they found them...” she used something that looked like a penlight, “a hundred and ninety-six years, eleven to eleven and a half months. The earth's been disturbed so I'm afraid I can't be more accurate.”

Andy was impressed – both by her skills and her equipment. Had the police any tools half this sophisticated (and any detectives half this smart) there wouldn’t have been any unsolved murder cases in Cardiff.

“What killed her?” Gwen asked. “The stapler?”

On the other hand, they didn’t have Gwen Cooper in their rows any longer, and that promised more properly solved cases in the future.

The doctor shook his head. “Nah. See those shattered ribs? I reckon she was shot.”

Their boss wrapped the rusty metal object into some kind of plane. “Well, let's get her back to the Hub and find out,” he said. “Ianto promised to have the corpse sent in within the hour.”

Gwen proffered the doctor a helping hand and pulled him up out the grave. “You're so light!” she teased him in a manner that sounded way too familiar to Andy. Things always started like that with Gwen. “You're like a girl.”

”I'm not light,” the doctor retorted darkly. “I'm wiry. Fat girls go mad for it,” he shot Gwen a sardonic look and added nastily. “But I guess I don't need to tell _you_ that.”

Andy snickered quietly at the doctor’s mean remark. Gwen was always so full of herself, so sure she looked better than anyone else, so quick to criticize other women; it served her good to be taken down a few pegs. Then he realized that Team Torchwood was about to leave; and that he had to do the same, unless he wanted them to catch him spying on them.

Nonetheless, he was more than a little disappointed that they seemed to have no idea what he strange metallic object could be. Perhaps they’d figure out eventually; but it wasn’t likely that anyone would tell him afterwards. The only one of them he could ask was Gwen, and she wouldn’t tell him _anything_. She’d just play up her new, shiny secret agent status and make him feel inadequate, the stupid cow.

It was really annoying, knowing someone in a top secret organization and not being able to learn anything. If he only could meet someone else from the Torchwood team, outside of work… that might actually work, if he played his cards right.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
His chance came earlier than he’d hoped for. Getting off-duty, he decided to go for a drink… alone. He usually went for a pizza and a beer with his mates from the police station, but when he wanted to mull over a problem, or to think about a question that interested him for some reason, he preferred to be alone.

He could shut out the background noise easily – a useful skill he’d developed growing up with four sisters – and the constant movement of shapes and colours helped him to think. Which sounded weird, but it worked, so why not put it to good use?

When he entered the pub – his usual watering hole when drinking alone – they were playing “I Broke Into Your House Last Night” in the background, and he saw her immediately. The cute Japanese chick from Torchwood. Toshiko Sato. She was sitting at the bar, nursing a drink, looking distant. It must have been a not-so-good day at Torchwood, if it drove such a classy lady into a pub, alone.

But again, it wasn’t really surprising. Poor chick had to work with Gwen now. For a woman who couldn’t even hope for sexual favours for doing all the work and cleaning up Gwen’s mess afterwards, it was probably even worse… although he wouldn’t put it beyond Gwen to do sexual favours to other women. That Rhys bloke really had a lot to put up with.

Putting Gwen out of his mind in favour of a much cuter girl, Andy walked to the bar and smiled at Miss Sato… if he remembered her name correctly, that is.

“Evening,” he said conversationally. “I never thought I’d find you here, all on your lonesome… unless you’re waiting for someone, in which case I’ll just shut up and leave.”

She looked at him a bit startled at first – then recognition dawned on her, and she smiled apologetically.

“Constable Davidson, is it? I’m sorry; I haven’t recognized you without the uniform right away.”

“Andy,” he corrected, grinning like a loon that she’d actually remembered his name. “Do I look so different in me civvies?”

She nodded. “You look older,” she judged. “Less like a toy soldier and more like a man. Looks good on you.”

Andy laughed. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

She smiled at him; a bit tiredly, but smiled. She had a beautiful smile. “You should.”

Andy ordered a beer and planted himself on the bar stool next to hers. “So… _are_ you alone here, then?”

She nodded. “I barely go to bars anymore. Not since Suzie…. Anyway, it’s always too much to do. Especially when one’s stupid and irresponsible co-workers manage to ruin the results of weeks of hard work in a second.”

Oh-oh, that sounded very familiar. Gwen-Cooper-kind of familiar. Andy patted her hand encouragingly.

“Tell me about it?” he invited.

She shook her head. “I don’t think I can. It’s… classified.”

For a moment, Andy hesitated whether he should tell her anything, knowing all too well Torchwood’s official policy about making people forget everything they might have learned about them. But she looked so burdened, so in need to talk to someone who’d actually understand her sorrow that he decided if she made her forget their conversation it wouldn’t be too bad.

“Listen,” he said, choosing his words very carefully, “I know Torchwood is a tad… unusual as a workplace. An uncle of mine, Mum’s second cousin from the maternal side, used to work for Torchwood Cardiff – until he died under mysterious circumstances, back in 1999. Right when Mum got the news, some people came from London, talked to her about Uncle Meirion, and on the next day all she could remember was that he’d worked for some security firm owned by a Mr. H. C. Clements and had a lethal car accident. They never thought to check whether we kids knew anything.”

She stared at him, clearly shocked by this news.

“And do you?” she asked. “Know anything, I mean?”

“Not much,” he clarified. “Uncle Meirion didn’t visit us a lot; not in the last years anyway. But earlier, when I was ten or twelve, he sometimes told me stories. About giant spaceships and weird creatures and stuff. Quite frankly, I thought he was a little mad and the stories all pure fantasy… until he died.”

“Why that?” she asked, more than a little worried. He shrugged.

“I was already with the police when he died, and when I visited Mum, I found it… strange that she would have false memories about her own cousin. That made me think; that and the strangers who’d visited her, according to the old lady in the wheelchair from the neighbourhood. She was a nosy one, you know, bored to death at home and used to watch her neighbours through an opera glass. So I began to suspect that perhaps not all of Uncle Meirion’s stories had been made up and put my antennae out in all directions. You’d be surprised how much you can learn about supposedly confidential things if you pay proper attention.”

“I can imagine,” she said darkly. “It seems that our security protocols need a serious update. Did you figure out what had really happened to your uncle?”

He shook his head. “Not beyond the fact that he was killed at his workplace. I realized that these people from London had made Mum forget to cover up the murder for some reason… and that they’d do the same to me if I wasn’t careful. So I _was_ careful and never spoke to anyone of what I’d figured out… until now. I wanted to remember Uncle Meirion and his stories.”

“Why bring it up now, then?” she asked. “Aren’t you afraid that I’ll make you forget?”

He shrugged again. “Why should you want to? I’m no danger for you folks. I’ve kept my mouth shut for nine years already; I don’t intend to start gossiping now.”

“That still doesn’t explain why you have told me all this,” she pointed out. She was smart, and not the least gullible.

“You look like someone who really needs to get things off her system,” he replied simply. “I’m not asking you about any big, dark Torchwood secrets. I’m just asking what’s bothering you right now.”

“It’s not really important,” she said with a sigh. “I just had an unpleasant encounter with one of my team-mates, that’s all.”

Andy grinned. “Let me guess. Are we talking about Gwen Cooper?” at her surprised reaction he grinned even broader. “Been there, done that, still have the scars.”

“I thought you were the bestest pals,” she said with fine irony.

“As long as I did all the work she felt too fine doing herself, yeah, we were,” Andy replied dryly. “So, what has she done this time? Spill!”

“It wasn’t her alone,” she admitted. “She and Owen – another colleague of us – were playing some sort of silly game in the office. Throwing things at each other… that kind of childish stuff. And then Owen accidentally I kicked out the plug of my computer.”

“Which, I assume, had some really important stuff running on it,” Andy finished, getting the picture. She nodded, her eyes glittering with annoyance.

“It was a translation programme I'd written,” she explained. “It had taken me weeks – no, _months_ , actually – to collate every scrap of every alien… I mean _foreign_ language we’ve got in our databases, and broken it down into binary threads to see if there was a common derivation…”

“I don’t pretend to understand half of what you’re talking about,” Andy said slowly, “But it sounds like an awful lot of work.”

“It is,” she sighed in defeat. “And now I can start from the scratch again – I couldn’t even back the results up before the programme had run its course, and since it was interrupted… damn, I was so looking forward to see how it would work!”

“I don’t assume either of them apologized,” Andy half-asked. He had no illusions about Gwen, but perhaps the team’s doctor was a more decent chap than he looked.

“They made dirty jokes about my explanation being ‘a bit of a mouthful’, and that was basically it,” she replied bitterly. “Then Owen told me that even the stick up my arse has got a stick up its arse.”

Okay, apparently not. Andy briefly contemplated the possibility of breaking the doctor’s nose by some well-orchestrated accident. Granted, he was paid to uphold the law, not to break it, but this was no way to talk to a lady.

“I’m really sorry, Miss Sato,” he said, hoping that he got her name right. She gave him a small smile.

“Toshiko,” she corrected. “Actually, Tosh will do. That’s how everyone calls me. I’m just so frustrated, you know? We're supposed to be _professionals_. We've got a job to do. Sometimes I have the impression that Ianto and I are the only people who actually _work_ in that place.”

“The friendly bloke from the tourist office?” Andy asked.

“You’ve met him?” Toshiko seemed surprised.

“A few times, yeah,” he admitted. “Gwen always orders me to the tourist office when she wants something from us.”

She frowned. “That’s highly irregular. You aren’t even supposed to know that she’s connected to the tourist office in any way.”

“Yeah, tell Gwen-bloody-Cooper she can’t do something,” he said wryly. “As long as you don’t expect her to actually _listen_ , that is. Listening has never been her forte.”

“I’m surprised Ianto hasn’t Retconned you yet,” she said.

“Retconned?” he repeated. The word sounded vaguely familiar.

“Made you forget,” she explained. “He’s very good at dosing the amnesia pill. Better than Owen, in any case, although Owen would never admit it, of course.”

“Oh, that,” Andy smiled. “He knows who I am, in relation to Uncle Meirion. He was the only one who’s made the connection between us. I reckon he thought he doesn’t need to, since I’ve kept my mouth shut voluntarily.”

That seemed to amuse her for some reason.

“Ianto is nothing if not thorough,” she said. “And often underestimated. The two of us happen to share _that_ aspect at Torchwood.”

“It’s always the quiet ones who surprise you,” he commented, grinning. Then he glanced at his watch. “Sorry, but it’s time for me to go home. I’ve got early shift tomorrow. Can I take you home first or are you staying a little longer?”

She smiled at him. “Thanks for the offer, but I think I’ll stay a little while yet. And don’t worry; your secret is safe with me.”

“I’m not worried,” he said. “Well, it was really nice talking to you. Perhaps we’ll run into each other again, some other time.”

“Perhaps,” she answered noncommittally. “Take care.”

“You, too,” Andy paid for his beer and slid from the bar stool to leave.

He was nearly out of the door when he saw that predatory blonde woman in that sleeveless purple top walk over and join Toshiko at the bar. He wondered briefly whether they’d go home together.


	2. Part Two

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
 **EPISODE 07 – GIFT HORSES, Part 2**

Their chance encounter in the pub inspired Andy to do a personal search on Toshiko Sato, and he was impressed by what he found out about her. Born in 1975, okay, so she was a few years older, but did that matter? Lived in Osaka for seven years with her parents, who’d both been in the Royal Air Force; her grandfather had worked for Bletchley Park. Snapped up to government science think tank at the age of… _twenty_?! Goodness, she had to be _real_ sharp, more than mere scientific doctorates would indicate.

And what was she doing between that and joining Torchwood three years ago? There was a short gap in her biography – questions, questions questions… and very few, very incomplete answers. But that was Torchwood for you. At least according to Uncle Meirion; and Andy tended to trust his late (and supposedly more than a little loony) uncle more nowadays than he’d ever done before.

To his surprise, he ran into Toshiko again, only a day later. In the same pub. Sitting on the same bar stool. Wearing the same long-sleeved red top. Nursing a drink that looked similar to the one she’d had a day earlier. Having the same distant look about her.

The only difference was a pendant of green crystal that she was wearing on a gold chain around her neck. It seemed a bit… out of place on her, as if she hadn’t had it for long yet. Perhaps it was a gift from someone. If yes, then she didn’t seem all too happy to have it.

“Evening,” Andy said conversationally. “I didn’t think I’d see you here so soon.”

“Well, _you_ are here, too,” she pointed out reasonably, but he could see that her eyes were red-rimmed behind her glasses, as if she’d been crying, just a short time ago.

“I usually come here to think,” he explained. “The background noise, I dunno, seems to help with that for some reason,” he shrugged. “Weird, I know, but there you are. So, what is _your_ excuse?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I’ve never seen you here before last night,” he clarified. “Now you’ve been here two nights in a row… and you look unhappy. So, what happened? Another bad day at work?”

She nodded, swishing her half-finished drink around in the tall glass listlessly. “Sort of. I accidentally heard some of my colleagues talk about me behind my back. It… it wasn’t pleasant. You think you know someone, then suddenly you see them for real, and they're... bastard little kids.”

She yanked the pendant off her neck and stuffed it into her handbag, blinking back her tears angrily.

Okay, this was getting officially weird. But Andy Davidson wasn’t a man to back off in the face of a little weirdness.

“Are we talking about everyone on your team or just about Gwen Cooper, the queen of denial and utterly unfamiliar with the very concept of tact and discretion?” he asked.

She gave him a tremulous smile. “Tell me something,” she said. “And please be honest; I can take it. In your eyes as a man, do I clothe myself really so outdated?”

Several things clicked into place in Andy’s head simultaneously.

“I see we’re talking about Gwen,” he said. “So, whom is she shagging now?”

Toshiko looked at him in complete shock, and he shrugged.

“Criticizing other women’s clothes is the surest sign that she has a new affair,” he explained. “We used to run polls about that when she still was with the police. Until she happened to say something about Detective Swanson’s jeans within her earshot, that is.”

“Why?” she asked, her mood visibly lifting a tad. “What happened?”

Andy grinned, because that was a glorious moment, often recalled at the police station, in spite of it having happened more than a year earlier.

“Detective Swanson told her that before criticizing other people’s clothing habits she should actually consider wearing a bra – and one that _worked_ – because the times when her tits might have been perky were obviously long gone,” he laughed quietly. “I have never seen Gwen Cooper looking more like a blowfish than that day… and red, too. She was puce! Even her freckles became invisible! We still talk about it on boring days – it was the most beautiful catfight in the history of Cardiff Police.”

He paused and became serious again, seeing that her eyes were still clouded a little. “So, _what_ did she say about your clothes?”

“It’s stupid, really,” she hesitated, clearly embarrassed about her own overreaction to such an insignificant thing, but Andy covered her trembling hand with his.

“Tell me,” he insisted gently.

“Nothing truly insulting,” she admitted. “Just that the jeans in the boots thing has kind of had its day.”

“Perhaps,” Andy said with a shrug. “But the cute female superhero look kinda suits you. Few women could pull it, that’s true, though. It needs a certain class.”

She frowned at him. “Are you flirting with me or laughing at me?” she asked angrily.

“Neither of those,” he replied. “Well, perhaps a bit flirting, yeah… but mostly, I’m trying to make you understand that Gwen Cooper’s self-centered rudeness shouldn’t bother you. You’re a lady with class. She’s as common as dirt. Don’t let her get to you; she’s not worth it.”

“It’s not just what she… what _they_ said about me,” she murmured. “I’ve just realized that she… that they…”

“… are shagging like bunnies in every available corner?” Andy supplied. “And that she likes to monologize about it afterwards, without realizing that other people can hear it? Well, that’s nothing new, either. I think that poor bloke he lives with is the only one who doesn’t know whom she’s shagging at any given time.”

Her eyes widened a little in surprise. “She’s done it before?”

“Oh, yeah,” Andy laughed quietly. “That’s her favourite method of stress management. The blokes she picks for… erm… _therapeutic_ reasons don’t even know what’s hit them before it’s too late.

Her eyes became a little cold for some reason he couldn’t interpret. “You speak as if from personal experience.”

Andy nodded. “Broom closet, two years ago, right after we’d become partners. Worst fucking mistake of my life. I still can’t exactly figure out how it happened. One moment she’s sobbing on my shoulder about a dead kid we’ve found in some garbage bin – the next moment we’re in the broom closet and she’s riding me like I’d be some prize stallion. And then behaves like she’d own me.”

“Well, she could hardly have dragged you in there by force,” she said pointedly. “Or did she hold a gun to your head?”

“I wish she did,” he answered ruefully. “That way at least I’d have an excuse. I couldn’t look Rhys in the eyes for months afterwards… and I broke up with my girlfriend. I… I was _afraid_ it might happen again, and I wouldn’t do _that_ to Sioned.”

“Did it?” Toshiko asked. “Happen again, I mean.”

Andy shook his head. “Nah; her interests change quickly once she’s had someone. The only one she always returns to is Rhys.”

“Does he know she’s cheating on him?” she asked.

“I’m not sure,” Andy said thoughtfully. “He’s not a fool, no matter what Gwen might think of him. But he’s completely, hopelessly besotted with her. I believe he consciously chooses _not_ to see things. Makes easier for him to cope with her escapades.”

She seemed to contemplate that aspect, but it apparently didn’t make her any happier.

“Why must devotion always be given to the unworthy?” she murmured bitterly.

“Perhaps because we men are all bloody morons?” Andy guessed. “But some of us learn from our mistakes, eventually. Don’t give up so easily. Your chance _will_ come.”

“Assuming that I’m interested in Gwen Cooper’s leftovers,” she returned sharply. “Can we just drop the topic as long as I still manage to stay moderately civil?”

Andy nodded. “Sure. Sorry if I was too nosy; I didn’t want to. But since we’ve run into each other, can I ask you if you guys found out anything about that skeleton – or the strange metal thing – found on that building site lately?”

She looked at him with a frown. “Are you supposed to know about that at all?”

“It would have been kinda hard to avoid,” he replied. “I was the constable assigned to watch the site, after all. I just… might have watched it – watched you people work there – a little more closely. I’m interested in that outer space sort of stuff, you know.”

“Is that a common constable trait?” she asked, sharper than she’d possibly intended. “To stick your noses into stuff that isn’t your business?”

“Well if it weren’t, Gwen wouldn’t have deigned to call us, trying to get more info about the building site,” Andy replied with a shrug. “The Sergeant couldn’t stop gloating all day; made her beg for it on the phone and enjoyed every moment of it, he did.”

“I know,” she said with a small half-smile. “Gwen was most indignant about it. She was considering putting a Wee... a nasty, murderous alien into his bathroom, should she come across one any time, soon.”

“Assuming said nasty, murderous alien wouldn’t run off in panic as soon as she did the eye-bulging routine on her,” Andy countered, grinning. “I know I would if I were an alien.”

“Which only shows that aliens are considerably more intelligent and have a much better honed sense of self-preservation than human males,” she returned. “But no, I can’t tell you nothing of either of the founds. Our boss is still examining the… artefact, whatever it might be, and our doctor is too busy shagging Gwen to finish the post mortem on the corpse.”

“I thought _you_ did all the technological stuff at Torchwood,” Andy said in surprise.

She shook her head. “Nah, it’s a little more complicated. What I do is usually related to computers, while our boss is dealing with the more concrete technology: weapons, tools, that sort of thing. Actually, Suzie used to be our weapons expert.”

“Suzie?” He never heard _that_ name from Gwen.

“She died just before Gwen was hired,” Toshiko explained.

“And Gwen has taken over her job?” Andy asked doubtfully.

It sounded a little unlikely, considering that Gwen barely managed to use a computer and run a proper search on the Internet. Plus, like many of the uniformed cops, she’d never held a gun in her hands before joining Torchwood. Constables didn’t carry weapons when on duty; Andy himself had only learned how to shoot because he wanted to become a detective one day.

Toshiko laughed. “Oh, no. Jack, that’s our boss, and I usually share Suzie’s old job, and Ianto often helps us. He’s really good with tech, and since he practically lives in his office, he’s always around.”

“Neither of you really has much of a life outside the office, have you?” Andy asked, thinking that for someone as bright and cute as her, it was a crying shame.

She shook her head ruefully. “Afraid not. Gwen’s the only one, and even she only because she already came with a boyfriend… not that she’d realize how damn lucky she is.”

“She never did,” Andy agreed. “She always took everything for granted. As if it would belong her by birthright,” he looked at her closely. “You don’t seem to take it well; that thing between her and that doctor of yours. Were the two of you…?"

“No, never,” she replied hurriedly. Too hurriedly, in fact, for this being a safe topic for her.

“So it’s only you who’s interested, then,” Andy shook his head in amazement. “What do you see in that bloke anyway? He’s rude, has the face of a weasel, _and_ a low enough standard to shag _Gwen_!”

“Which you also have done, by your own admission,” she pointed out mercilessly.

“Point taken,” he admitted.

She sighed. “I always seem to fall for the wrong guy. Perhaps I ought to try my luck with girls.”

“The blonde from last evening?” he asked knowingly. “I saw her approach you, just when I went out the door. So, did you take her home with you?”

“It wasn’t like that; not that it would be your business in any way,” she replied. “Mary… she was just bothered by some guy and didn’t want to get in a fight with him, that’s all. We… talked quite a bit afterwards. It felt so good to talk to a woman again. I’ve missed that since Suzie’s death; I didn’t even realize how much I’ve missed it.”

“You and this Suzie... were you really close?” Andy asked. This was the second time that she’d mentioned this Suzie person in such a nostalgic manner.

She shrugged. “Turns out we weren’t close enough. But we were the only women on the team, and sometimes that matters a lot.”

“You hung out together, haven’t you?”

“Not very much,” she admitted. “Suzie was married to her job; she used to stay longer than anyone else except Ianto – she had a real passion for it. Sometimes, though, we went to a bar after work, had a chat, had a drink… she liked Martinis. I only realized how little I truly knew about her when she was already dead. But yeah, I miss the camaraderie… and the knowledge that I had nothing to fear when she was watching my back.”

“You must have liked her very much,” Andy said thoughtfully.

She shrugged again. “Suzie wasn’t easy to like. Brilliant, sarcastic, intuitive, hard-working, yes… but never showing a chink in her armour. I never knew how bitter she had become in the inside, how much the work we do had eaten her up. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll be the next. Hollowed out and finally killed by Torchwood.”

“Why don’t you quit then?” Andy asked.

She shook her head. “I can’t. I’ve got a five-year-contract with Torchwood, and I’m not through yet. This isn’t the kind of job you can just quit. Besides, I do like my work… most of the time. It’s challenging, it’s exciting, and it makes me feel as if I’m making a difference, you know?”

“We _always_ make a difference, whether we know or not,” a sultry voice said from behind their backs.

They both turned around and saw a thin, blonde woman, wearing a purple top and a skirt other women would consider a broad belt, approaching them. Andy recognized her at once: it was the one from last night.

“So, you’ve come back,” she said to Toshiko with a faint smile and lit a cigarette. “Somehow I thought you might.”

Toshiko shrugged and blushed, just a little bit. There was a softness in her face that hadn’t been there before. All of a sudden Andy felt like the fifth wheel.

“Right; that’s my clue to leave, then,” he said. “Was nice to chat with you, Miss Sato. See you later.”

He stood and ran, displaying as much dignity as a bloke could possibly manage to come up with when dumped by two chicks who clearly preferred each other’s company to his. But the bad feeling in the pit of his stomach didn’t come from the awkward situation alone. Something was decidedly odd with this Mary – if that was indeed her name – and it worried him that Toshiko wouldn’t see it… or that she’d ignore it.


	3. Part Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The _Mermaid’s Dream_ is  not a really existing pub, although I do use it in various Torchwood stories.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
 **EPISODE 07 – GIFT HORSES, Part 3**

On the next two evenings Andy didn’t go to his favourite pub. Somehow he knew Toshiko wouldn’t be there; she’d gone all deer-in-the-headlights when that Mary character walked in and seemed to forget everything else. Perhaps she’d been serious, saying that she’d try her luck with girls for a change. Or perhaps that Mary person was doing some hypnotic mumbo-jumbo on her. Perhaps that pendant he’d seen her wearing for a short while had something to do with it.

Andy had Yvonne run a search on a Mary; age: late twenties or early thirties, slim, blonde, smoking a lot. He had Yvonne look for frauds matching that description cos he was certain that she had to be some sort of swindler. The search brought up forty-seven possible matches. He read their files after work, every single one of them; studied the pictures that came with the files. Toshiko’s Mary wasn’t among them.

On the second day he asked Yvonne to extend the search to all known blonde female frauds of the approximately same age, regardless of the name. The extended search brought up a hundred and thirty-eight other possible suspects. Andy got their files, too, read them and checked their photos. Again, Toshiko’s Mary wasn’t among them.

“What are you looking for anyway?” Desk Sergeant Bronowski asked, seeing him buried in old files. “Who’s this chick you try to find?”

“I’m not sure,” Andy replied slowly. “She’s been cruising around someone I happen to know, and I’m a tad worried.”

“Worried about what?” the Sergeant asked. Andy shrugged.

“Dunno. It’s just a gut feeling, you know? I have this feeling that she’s up to no good, and I’m worried about that lady I know.”

“Oh-oh,” Bronowski’s small eyes began to sparkle with interest. “A special someone, isn’t she?”

Andy shook his head. “Not _that_ way; I barely know her. ‘Sides, she’s way above my league, I’m afraid.”

“Where do you know her from?” Bronowski asked.

“She’s Torchwood,” Andy explained. “We ran into each other a couple of times at various crime scenes.”

“She works with Gwennie?” Bronowski snorted and shook his head in compassion. “Well, that surely lessens your chances, lad. She’d have a very low opinion about the constabulary by now. Which would be a real shame, but hardly surprising.”

They shared a good laugh at Gwen’s expense; then Andy gathered the files and took them all back to the filing cabinet.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
He intended to continue his search in the countless pubs and bars during patrol duty on the third day. It was part of his job to check those places regularly, which would give him both the opportunity and the excuse to look out for his personal suspect. But after only two hours into shift, they were called to secure a crime scene.

When he got to the house – a rather nice one, with a glass door – two uniformed colleagues were leading away a hand-cuffed man in his mid-thirties. The man seemed ordinary enough, like any other bloke one could see on the streets, but there was something not-quite-sane in his dark eyes… something that made Andy shiver.

A slim woman with short dark hair and a kid of about ten or twelve – clearly their son – were being questioned by various plain-cloth detectives. The woman seemed scared out of her wits, alternately sobbing and screaming at the suspect, while the kid wore that sour expression with which boys of his age usually reacted to adult people’s hysterics.

There was a team of paramedics as well, since the handcuffed man seemed to have suffered some kind of head injury, if the bandage was any indication. There was some blood on the floor, but not much, so the injury couldn’t have been too bad. One of the crime scene investigators was examining a bloodied golf club, taking fingerprints and blood samples for further investigations. Another one was doing the same with a two-barrelled rifle, after having removed the bullets.

“What’s happened?” Andy asked SOCO technician Tim Cochrane, a scruffy little Welsh guy whom he knew quite well. He’d often worked with the man before being cursed with Gwen as a partner and they’d used to get along just nicely.

“Your usual, run-of-the-mill family drama,” Cochrane replied with a shrug. “Apparently, the bloke whom your mates have just arrested is the ex-husband of the lady,” he nodded in the direction of the slightly hysterical woman. “He doesn’t seem to deal well with the fact that she’s with another man now and even plans to get married again. So he decided to shoot both his ex and his kid, rather than losing them.”

“The sick bastard,” Andy commented in disgust. “Did he injure them? The blood on the floor…”

“… is his,” Cochrane said. “Some young chick heard him muttering to himself about how he was gonna kill them. She became suspicious, followed him to the house, and when he pulled out the gun, she crashed down the golf club on his head.”

“That was civil courage if I’ve ever seen it,” Andy said, impressed.

Cochrane nodded. “Yeah. If there were more people like her, we’d have less murder victims to deal with.”

“Who’s she?” Andy asked.

Cochrane shrugged, finishing his work on the gun and put it into a plastic bag. “Dunno. Some Asian chick. Freaking cute, though. Inspector Henderson’s talking to her right now.”

Andy looked in the direction Cochrane had vaguely gestured at, and through the open door of another room he saw Detective Inspector Henderson, a big, burly guy, built like a brick shithouse, with hands of the size of coal shovels, looking even larger in his trademark, sand-coloured trenchcoat and sloppy hat, talking to a woman who barely reached to his chest. The woman had dark hair, glasses and wore a dark jacket over her green top. She seemed a little upset, but not as much as someone who’d just prevented the slaughter of an entire family ought to be.

Considering the fact that the woman was no-one else but Dr. Toshiko Sato from Torchwood, though, it perhaps wasn’t all that surprising. Torchwood agents were used to deal with things that would scare ordinary people to death.

But even so, the thought of her actively following a would-be murderer and dealing with him on her own made Andy uncomfortable. Ladies like her shouldn’t deal with scum. That was what police was for. He inched closer to the door, hoping to hear something about the case itself. Based on what Cochrane had already told him, it must have been an upsetting one.

“So, you’ve heard him muttering to himself, “Inspector Henderson was saying when Andy got within earshot. “What exactly did he say?”

“At first, he repeated ‘I'm gonna kill them’ over and over again,” the gentle voice of Toshiko answered. “Then he said something about laying their bodies outside, and lying next to them, so that he’d have to do himself lying down. So I reckon that he wanted to kill himself, too. He was even worried about not having practiced it lying down. That it might not work out the way he’d planned.”

“And the thought to call the police didn’t even occur to you?” Inspector Henderson asked. “Or are you Torchwood typed fighting common crimes in your spare time nowadays?”

“It wasn’t like that,” she replied, almost apologetically. “I… I just went with my instincts, I guess. Besides, I couldn’t see any uniformed cops around, and looking for one would have me lose the suspect.”

“Well, it was a brave thing to do in any case,” Henderson said. “A brave – and foolish thing. You could have gotten hurt easily. The man was a head taller than you are.”

Andy snickered, realizing that Toshiko, being small and cute as a button, must have brought out the male protective instinct of all big men – especially as large ones as the inspector. He felt the same effect on himself, to tell the truth.

She must have known it, too, because she smiled.

“Inspector, nearly all men I’ve met in my life were at least a head taller than I am,” she pointed out. “Don’t let my size fool you; I’m a trained field agent and can take care of myself very well. Besides, I hit the guy on the head from behind – he never knew I was even there. The only people really in danger were his ex-wife and their kid.”

“Still, attacking him with a golf club while he had a gun…”

“I’ve got a gun, too,” Toshiko interrupted. “Complete with a licence to use it if I think it’s necessary. But if I’d started to shoot around me, the woman and the kid might have gotten caught in the crossfire and hurt, perhaps even killed. It was safer this way.”

“I’m heavily impressed nonetheless,” Henderson said. “We’re gonna send your boss a report with our thanks.”

“Really, that’s not necessary…”

“No, no, I insist. It doesn’t happen every day that a civilian would show so much courage… or so much skill.”

“That’s because technically, I’m not a civilian,” Toshiko replied. “I’m dealing with stuff on a daily basis that’s a lot worse than mere homicidal ex-husbands.”

“Is that so?” Henderson asked mildly. “Why are your hands shaking, then?”

Toshiko looked down at her hands. They were shaking badly indeed. Not that Andy would blame for that. Other women (like Gwen) would have been in hysterics, having gone through the same, demanding to be comforted.

“It’s just nerves,” she said dismissively.

“Perhaps,” Henderson allowed. “I’d still find it better if you didn’t drive just now.

He looked around and spotted Andy who was pretending he hadn’t listened to their conversation with... moderate success.

“Constable…”

“Davidson, sir,” Andy supplied. The inspector nodded.

“Right, I remember now. Well, Constable Davidson, I want you to take the lady home… or to her workplace, whichever she’d prefer.”

“But sir, I’m supposed to secure the crime scene here,” Andy reminded him. He’d have liked nothing more than play the cavalier to Toshiko, but there were such things as regulations.

“You’re relieved,” Henderson said. “We’ve done the interviews, crime scene investigation is all but finished… your partner can deal with the rest alone. Just get her safely home.”

“Yes, sir,” Andy turned to Toshiko. “Shall we, Dr. Sato?”

“You know each other?” Henderson asked in surprise.

Andy shrugged. “We run into each other from time to time. My former partner works for them now.”

Henderson shook his head in honest amazement. “Gwen Cooper? Yeah, I’ve heard about that from Swanson, but I still can’t imagine what could have ridden Captain Harkness to hire someone like her… aside from invasive, illegal hypnosis or mind-altering drugs, that is.”

“Hormones, perhaps,” Andy supplied.

“No way,” Henderson said firmly. “It _must_ have been a hypnotic suggestion. Hormones can’t be _that_ strong.”

Toshiko snickered. “The Captain said once that she reminded him of a bug-eyed, tentacled alien he used to be intimate with,” she said, trying to keep a straight face. “Of course, we can never tell when he’s joking.”

Andy nodded sagely. “That would explain a lot,” he commented. “Like I said: hormones.”

Henderson blinked a few times, trying to decide whether they were pulling his leg or not. Then he probably decided that it had, indeed, been a joke, even if he still didn’t get it, because, frankly, the alternative would just be too weird to consider, even from someone who worked for Torchwood.

“All right, Constable,” he said. “We all had our laugh; now, why don’t you take the lady home?”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Toshiko wasn’t particularly thrilled by the idea of being ferried home by police car, Andy could see that. But the inspector clearly wasn’t ready to back off from his chivalrous intent, so she went with Andy without further objection.

“I’m glad he had the common sense to pick _you_ , “she said. “At least you know I don’t need to be treated like some fragile flower.”

“Perhaps,” Andy said noncommittally. “But you might want to talk about it. We could make a little detour to the pub and…”

“No,” she said quickly. “Not _that_ pub. I… I don’t think I’d wish to go there again. Ever.”

 _Oh-oh_ , Andy thought, _that date must not have gone too well last night! So much about trying her luck with girls_.

“There are many other pubs in town,” he said simply.

She hesitated for a moment, clearly warring with herself.

“All right,” she finally decided,” pick one. I… I think I really need to wind down a bit.”

Andy took her to the _Mermaid’s Dream_ , one of the older, more traditional-looking pubs near Roald Dahl Plass. It wasn’t his preferred watering hole, but one he’d visited with his dad a few times, whenever they needed to talk.

“It isn’t very flashy,” he apologized, “but it’s usually quiet at this time, and we can have some privacy.”

It was a quiet place indeed, with wood panelling on the walls, everything coloured in brown and beige; a bit boring-looking, actually. There were only a few people drinking in the other boxes and talking in low tones, and someone playing on the flashing slot machine behind them. Definitely not a place where a lady of her class would go on her own, but it fit their purposes perfectly.

Andy went to the bar and ordered a gin tonic for Toshiko and a lemonade for himself. He was still on duty, after all.

“So,” he said, placing their drinks on the table and taking the chair opposite her. “What happened? I mean, what _really_ happened? Cos all that stuff about the suspect talking to himself about murdering his whole family is just rubbish, and you know that.”

“Do I?” she asked softly, nursing her drink.

Andy snorted. “Oh, please! You aren’t talking to Gwen Cooper here, remember? I might not be a detective, but I’m not stupid. And I’ve been with the police long enough to know that if someone’s about to commit multiple homicides, they don’t talk about it to themselves aloud while they’re in the street. Unless they’re complete nutcases – and that bloke wasn’t nuts. Well, he was, of course, but not in the way of being an idiot. More on the slightly obsessed side, I reckon.”

“Andy,” she said gently, “you’re babbling.”

He gave her e bashful smile. “I am, aren’t I? You do have that effect on me every time. Anyway, what I meant is that no way would that bloke have rambled aloud. So, how did you figure out what he was up to? Used some kind of super-secret mind-reading gadget?”

He’d meant it as a joke and was greatly surprised by the look of utter shock on her face.

“Oh my God!” he whispered. “You did it, didn’t you? Are you Torchwood guys doing that all the time? Spying on other people’s private thoughts? Cos it’s not only illegal and against personal rights, you know; it’s immoral, too.”

“I know,” she replied tonelessly. She seemed deeply ashamed about it. “I… I didn’t know the pendant would do that when Mary first gave it me.”

“The pendant?” Andy started to understand things. “The one made of green crystal? The one I saw you when I ran into you in the other pub the second time? So it isn’t actually a Torchwood item, is it?”

She shook her head. “It was a… a gift. More of a course, now that I think about it.”

“Because you learned what other people think about you?” Andy asked. “You really shouldn’t be bothered by such things. Most people are idiots anyway.”

“No,” she said. “Because I’ve been spying on my friends. And it makes me feel dirty and ashamed. As you said: it’s illegal, it violates other people’s privacy, and therefore it’s immoral, too.”

Andy shrugged. “You can always choose _not_ to use it. Or to give it back.”

“I could, I guess,” she agreed reluctantly. “Unless… unless I came to the conclusion that it would be even more dangerous in _her_ hands than in mine.”

“And would it?” Andy asked. “Do you really think she’s dangerous?”

Toshiko didn’t answer at once, but her face was gradually getting clouded with sorrow.

“I don’t know,” she finally said. “I wish I could say _no_ , but I just don’t know.”

“And yet you took her home with you on that second night.” It wasn’t a question, but Toshiko nodded anyway. “Why?”

“I’ve read her thoughts. She… she _wanted_ me,” Toshiko stared at her drink dejectedly. “It has been a long time since anyone really wanted me.”

“Perhaps you just turned that bloody thing in the wrong direction,” Andy replied quietly. “What if she deceived you? Some people can have amazing control over their thoughts; what if she only let you see what she knew you _wanted_ to see?”

Her eyes turned to him, hurt, accusing. “Are you trying to ruin this for me?”

“No,” he answered. “I just don’t want you to get hurt. You need to be careful.”

“Being careful never brought me anything else but loneliness and even more work,” she returned bitterly. “So what if she only uses me? I use her, too; it’s not so as if I’d fallen in love, all of a sudden. I still get something good out of it; more, in fact, than I’ve had out of being rational for _years_! Besides, what could she possibly want from me? Aside from the obvious, that is.”

“I don’t know,” Andy admitted. “Who’s she anyway, and where did she get that bloody pendant from?”

“She’s a scavenger,” Toshiko shrugged. “Someone who collects alien artefacts, just like we do. She says the pendant has been in her family for a very long time.”

“And yet she gave it to you?” Andy found that more than a little suspect. “Just like that, out of the blue?”

Toshiko shrugged again. “She says she’s had it for too long. It might get addictive after a while, I reckon. It does give you a heady feeling of power, you know.”

“I can imagine,” Andy said. “And yet she gave it to you. Enabled you to hear the sometimes petty thoughts of your friends. What for? Is she trying to alienate you from them, so that you’d be under her influence alone? But why?”

“I don’t see any reason,” she said. “She already knows about Torchwood, knows who we are and what we do. She saw us at the site where we found that skeleton… and the strange alien artefact we still don’t know what might be.”

“Then it’s perhaps the artefact she’s interested in,” Andy said slowly. “She sees you at the site. At the same night, she shows up in the pub, approaches you and gives you an alien gadget that supposedly lets you read other people’s minds. That’s a bit much of a coincidence, isn’t it?”

“Coincidences _do_ happen,” she returned angrily. “And people can want me for myself, not just for my big, dark Torchwood secrets, you know, even if _you_ don’t seem to believe it.”

“Actually,” Andy laughed nervously. “I might believe _that_ more strongly than you do. Do you have that thing on her right now?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Put it on.”

She frowned. “Why should I…?”

“Put it on,” Andy insisted. “If it truly works as it’s supposed to, you’ll understand the reason.”

She hesitated for a moment, but then took the pendant out of her handbag and put it on. She closed her eyes, clearly trying to focus, to insolate his thoughts from those of the other people around them. Andy tried to relax, to open his mind to her willingly, to share his feelings for her… feelings about the nature of which he wasn’t exactly sure himself. Well, at least it was the honest thing to do.

After a moment, she stiffened and became very still... then she blushed and opened her eyes.

“How long?” she asked, her voice barely audible above the background noise.

He shrugged, getting a little red-eared himself. “Since the first time we spoke, actually. Then I did a little research, and… well, it’s gotten worse. Or better, depending on your point of view. You… you've got under my skin somehow, and now I’m hooked for good.”

She pulled in her neck in embarrassment and blushed even deeper. “But I can’t… not now, anyway; perhaps not even later…”

“I know,” he smiled, a little sadly. “It’s okay. Don’t feel guilty; it’s not your fault that I’m having the biggest crush since I was fourteen. I just showed you how I feel because I wanted you to know that you _do_ have other options… even if you choose not to use them.”

She smiled at him tremulously. “Thank you.”

“It was my pleasure,” he paused for a moment. “Would you do something for me? A small thing, just to put my mind at ease?”

“It depends,” she answered carefully.

He smiled and wrote down the number and frequency of his emergency pager on one of the paper napkins lying on the table.

“Keep this on you, all the time. Should you be in trouble, you can page me directly. Only the police know this number… and now you. I’m sure you’ll be able to hack into the system easily.”

“Are you allowed to give this to an outsider?” Toshiko asked.

“No,” he confessed. “But it would make me breathe more freely if I knew that I could come to your help, should you need it. I’m a police officer; that’s what I do for a living. So… let me help you if you’re in need, will you?”

“All right,” she said after a moment of hesitation and pocketed the napkin. Later, she’d save the number to her mobile phone, just in case. “Thanks for everything; I really appreciate what you’ve done for me. But now I have to go to work before Jack gets mad at me. Gwen’s the only one who can afford to be late.”

“I’ll walk you to the tourist office,” Andy offered.

Toshiko wanted to protest, but he was having none of it, so she finally gave in. They walked down the small street to the Plass like two old friends on the verge of _possibly_ becoming something more.


	4. Part Four

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
 **EPISODE 07 – GIFT HORSES, Part 4**

Torchwood’s general go-to-guy, currently disguised as the clerk of the tourist office - which, in turn, served as camouflage for the entire Torchwood base - looked impeccable, as always, in his well-fitted dark suit, blue dress shirt and red tie. He gave Andy his trademark, bland receptionist smile… then his blue eyes filled with warmth upon the sight of Toshiko.

“Hi Tosh,” he said gently. “Are you okay?”

She looked at him in surprise. “Sure, why shouldn’t I?”

“Inspector Henderson has just called Jack,” Ianto explained. “He was most impressed… and so was Jack, in fact. He’s already asked where you are.”

“We’ve taken a short break,” Andy intervened. “She needed a little time to unwind; surely you can understand that?”

“Me and everyone else,” Ianto assured them both. “You’ve missed Owen’s big moment of humiliation, though… unless Little Miss Sensitive would be still cooing in triumph when you get down.”

Toshiko snickered, and Andy had no doubts, either, who was meant under that nickname. Ianto’s dryly sarcastic tone spoke volumes.

“What happened?” Toshiko asked.

Ianto’s smile grew wider. “Remember the skeleton found at the building site?”

“Of course,” Toshiko replied. “You mean Owen has actually found the time to complete the post-mortem? Took him long enough.”

“I reckon he was… distracted,” Ianto coughed discretely, his smug expression leaving little doubt by _what_ exactly their doctor might have been distracted… or _whom_. “In any case, as you may remember, Owen’s preliminary report said this was a woman killed by a single gunshot.”

“I was _there_ , Ianto…” Toshiko trailed off; then she guffawed. “You mean it wasn’t?”

“Not exactly,” Ianto’s eyes were twinkling with amusement. “Firstly, it isn’t a woman at all, but a man.”

“Ow!” Toshiko groaned sympathetically. “That provides Gwen with blackmail material for the next ten years or so. Poor Owen, he’ll never live this down. Never.”

“Well, to his defence, he had neither the time nor the right tools to properly examine the corpse,” Ianto said fairly. “According to him, it was a young man. A very… _girly_ man.”

“Oh, my!” Toshiko snorted. “I can imagine the fun Gwen was having with _that_ fact.”

“Oh, yeah,” Ianto admitted. “She was laughing herself silly and all but dancing around the walkway, singing that stupid song about the leg bone being connected the hipbone and so on. Owen was sticking his fingers into his ears and yelling at her to stop – I don’t blame him, actually, Gwen isn’t exactly opera singer material. And Jack was watching them and laughing his head off.”

“Ouch!” Toshiko winced in sympathy. “Jack and Gwen ganging up against Owen – he _did_ hate that, I presume.”

“Oh yeah,” Ianto replied, with an almost manic gleam of satisfaction in his eyes. “And then there’s the cause of death, of course.”

“What’s with that?” Toshiko asked. “Owen said it was a gunshot wound.”

“He did,” Ianto agreed. “In the meantime, however, he's had to tweak some of his initial conclusions.”

“So, the correct answer is...?” Toshiko trailed off.

“Unidentified trauma,” Ianto answered.

“Unidentified trauma?” Toshiko repeated with a frown.

“You often see things like that in RTAs, when something like a steering column or a post goes into a body at great velocity,” Andy explained. “It’s not a pleasant sight, by far. The first couple of times as a newbie I got sick; after a few years, though, you get used to it. Sad, but true.”

“Do we know _what_ caused the trauma?” Toshiko asked.

Ianto shook his head. “Nope. By a two-hundred-year-old desiccated corpse, it’s hard to define. But the one thing that could be ruled out was...”

“Gunshot wound,” Toshiko guessed.

“Gunshot wound,” Ianto agreed, grinning in evil satisfaction.

“Was there, in fact, any part of your doctor’s prognosis that was right?” Andy snickered.

Ianto gave him a bland look. “Well, he did get that it was a skeleton.”

Toshiko punched him in the biceps. “Don’t be so mean, Ianto!”

“I can’t help it,” Ianto answered serenely. “I so love to see Owen taken down a peg or two. Makes my entire day, in fact.”

“And Gwen, after having seen dozens of RTAs since she joined the police, couldn’t even make a single suggestion about the cause of the trauma?” Andy asked in exasperation.

“I guess she was too busy making fun of Owen,” Ianto replied. “Lover’s spat and all that, you know.”

Toshiko’s face suddenly crumpled in misery, and Andy felt the urge to kick Ianto in the shin for the tactless remark. Didn’t he know that she had a thing for their doctor? Could he really be that blind, despite working with them?

“I know,” she said in such a sad voice it nearly broke Andy’s heart. “God, I wish I didn’t.”

Ianto leaned over the counter and looked at her with sympathy. “Tosh,” he said gently. “He’s not worth it.”

 _Okay, so not so blind, after all_. And Toshiko accepted his opinion without protesting. _They must be good friends_ , Andy thought.

“I could take a look at that skeleton of yours,” he offered. “From the different perspective of a police officer, I mean. Perhaps I’d see something you’ve overlooked.”

“That could prove helpful,” Toshiko agreed. “We do tend to be a bit too specific sometimes.” But Ianto shook his head.

“I don’t think Jack would like the idea,” he said.

“Why not?” Toshiko asked. “He supposedly hired Gwen for her skills learned in police service. Well, the only skills she’s displayed so far were being taken hostage, getting shot and shagging Owen. Perhaps a police officer who actually _knows_ what he’s doing would be a useful thing, for a change.”

“Besides,” Andy added with a shrug, “you can always make me forget afterwards. That’s how Torchwood deals with witnesses, isn’t it? With the good old amnesia pill.”

“It’s not that simple,” Ianto sighed. “I’ve already Retconned you twice since Gwen joined us. After a while, one builds up a kind of immunity against it; and the cumulative effect of Retcon can be dangerous. We still have no real facts concerning long-time effects.”

Andy stared at him in open-mouthed shock.

“You’ve already Retconned me?” he repeated, unable to believe what he’d just heard. “You’ve really done that to me? _Twice_?”

“With Gwen spewing nonsense about highly sensitive stuff within your earshot every time she commandeers you to come here, it’s a wonder I only had to do it twice,” Ianto replied with an elegant shrug. He did elegant very well; one had to give him that. “In my opinion, it would be a lot easier for everyone involved to hire you as a freelance agent; in fact, I’ve already suggested it to Jack. But his recent experiences with Gwen have made him somewhat… doubtful about the competence of our police. A shame, really.”

“No shit, man,” Andy agreed. “My career has suffered greatly from the fact that I used to have her as my partner. Otherwise, I’d have made Desk Sergeant years ago. It’s a tad frustrating, though, that even here, she must be the stone that brings me to fall.”

“You’d like to work for Torchwood?” Ianto asked in surprise. “After what happened to your uncle?”

Andy shrugged. “Well, I’d prefer to make it Detective, but I’m afraid I’m getting too old for going back to school. Torchwood would be, like, the closest thing; and Uncle Meirion liked to work for your organization.”

Ianto seemed to consider that aspect for a moment; then he shrugged and pushed some button hidden under the counter. Part of the wall on Andy’s right turned to the side, like the secret door that it was.

“Go on then,” he said, nodding in the direction of the doorway.

Toshiko already hurried forward, and after a moment of hesitation, Andy followed her through the passageway, into a dark stone corridor. He turned for a moment and looked both ways. At one end, an elevator door opened. Toshiko was heading for the door and stepped into the elevator without hesitation. Andy hurried after her. Before he could change his mind, the door closed and the elevator began to descend.

After a fairly long way down, the back elevator doors opened at Sublevel 4 – at least that was written on the door. Toshiko left the cabin, Andy stepping into her footprints. In front of them, a circular door stood open between two concrete columns, one of which had the message “THIS STAIRCASE HAS 105 STEPS” on it. Andy’s heart beat in his throat, as he realized that he was just about to enter the Hub, the central headquarters for Torchwood Three, where his Uncle Meirion had worked for decades… and possibly died.

In the back of the large central room, there was a highly sophisticated computer terminal; he assumed that would be Toshiko’s workplace. As soon as they entered the Hub, the circular outer door closed. So did the inner barred gate, effectively sealing them inside. That was a little disturbing, but since Toshiko didn’t show any signs of concern, it had to be the normal procedure.

The light stopped flashing. Andy’s eyes were involuntarily drawn to a large severed hand in a tank of bubbling liquid. He gulped, trying not to get sick, cos that really wouldn’t have made a good impression. It was bad enough that Gwen had already managed to ruin the police’s reputation with these people; he couldn’t add insult to injury right now. Other than them both, the huge room seemed empty. There was a central power column rising up to the high ceiling, reminding him of the Warp core of some Star Trek spaceship. He snickered at the geeky allusion.

There were also other rooms on two more levels with large glass windows facing the Hub. Above their heads, Jack Harkness was standing at a desk in some office on the second floor and was dialling on his mobile phone. As always, he looked just a wee bit out of place in his old-fashioned trousers and red braces.

“Security visa 45895. Harkness,” he spoke into the phone with marked impatience in his voice, apparently waiting for someone to be rerouted his call to on the other end of the connection. Then he spotted Toshiko, covered the phone mic and called down to her. “Hey! What's happening with that list for UNIT?”

“Hmm?” Toshiko seemed decidedly guilty. “Oh, yeah. I'm still working on it.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “Right. Well, you know, when you're ready...” he broke off, having reached the right person on the phone. “Prime Minister, is this a secure line? Can you tell me why Torchwood operations have become part of your security briefings to the leader of the Opposition? Well the deal is, no...”

For a moment, Andy just stood there, completely dumbfolded. Had he just heard Jack Harkness telling off the _Prime Minister_? Who were these guys? Uncle Meirion had said they were influential, but yelling at the PM? That wasn’t a possibility Andy had ever considered.

Toshiko tugged on his sleeve. “Come on! Let’s go to the autopsy bay before he realizes you’re here and bites my head off.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Unsurprisingly, they found Gwen in the autopsy bay, too – making big go-go eyes at their doctor, who, for a change, was ignoring her. Instead, he was staring at the skeleton on his autopsy table moodily. When they entered, he looked up, giving Andy a decidedly unfriendly glare.

“What’s _he_ doing here?” he asked. “Aren’t we blessed with the invaluable help of _one_ constable already?”

“He offered to take a look at the wound,” Toshiko explained.

“What for?” Gwen asked in a rather hostile manner. “I already did it and came up with nothing.”

“Which is exactly why you used to be assigned to me,” Andy replied sharply. “To _learn_ ; it isn’t my fault that you were always unwilling to do so.”

Owen snickered, and even knowing about his affair with Gwen, Andy could understand his amusement. According to Ianto, Gwen had just insulted his professional pride – he must have liked to see her suffering the same.

“Well, if you think you can find anything, be my guest,” the doctor said, making an exaggeratedly inviting gesture. Andy stepped up to the autopsy table, eager to learn more, and gave the desiccated corpse a thorough visual examination.

“Exit wound in the chest,” he murmured. “Shape and size are rather unusual… not even an axe-pole would cause so much damage. What the hell was this bloke impaled on anyway? I’ve never seen anything like this, and I _have_ seen my fair share of trauma victims.”

“I haven’t got a clue,” the doctor admitted. “And there’s something even more disturbing: I haven’t found any sign of an entry wound on this guy’s back.”

“What?” Andy frowned. “But that’s impossible! Unless…”

“Yeah,” Owen agreed. “Unless something – or some _one_ – simply reached into his chest and plucked his heart out.”

“Ewww!” Gwen rolled her eyes. “You shouldn’t be so morbidly fascinated by that thought, you know.”

Owen ignored her, taking a mug of coffee from the almost magically appearing Ianto, without bothering to thank him, and sipped from it.

“It can be done, you know,” he said thoughtfully. “The amount and variety of torture instruments used in the past are amazing… in a sick, disgusting way, that is. So, since this isn't a gunshot or a musket shot, or whatever they had then, maybe it was some kind of ritual. I’ve already started looking into devil-worship and stuff from that era, see if there's anything about plucking out hearts, and would you believe it? There's nothing. They ate eyeballs, they drank blood, they had sex with animals, but they did not pluck out each other's hearts. Cos, obviously, _that_ would have been weird,” he added with a sarcastic eyeroll. He did sarcastic very well.

Andy listened to him with growing respect. Owen Harper might have been a first class bastard when it came to women, but he was clearly a bright and thorough one.

“Why are you so bothered by this?” Toshiko asked. “Whoever did this is hardly a threat to society any more.”

“Yeah, I know,” the doctor replied impatiently. “It's just, there's something... Does that remind you of anything?”

“Um... That bit in Alien where that thing bursts out of John Hurt?” Toshiko asked, half-jokingly. Owen gave her a sour look.

“I'm sorry,” he said as if he’d be talking to a particularly stupid child. “I should have been more specific. Does that remind you of anything _helpful_?”

Toshiko shrugged. “No. Sorry.“

“Right,” Owen said. “Erm, just go over there, do your computer stuff and think about shoes, eh? Thank you.”

Toshiko’s eyes clouded over with hurt, and Andy glared at Owen with disapproval. How could he treat a lady like Toshiko in such a rude manner?

“You know what, doc?” he said. “You’re a prick.”

“And you, Constable Davidson, are apparently a good judge of character,” Jack Harkness said, entering the autopsy bay. “But it isn’t his charming personality alone why we keep him.”

“What is it then?” Gwen asked, snickering. “It can hardly be his professional competence, right? He couldn’t even tell a trauma from a gunshot wound!”

The bright blue eyes of their boss grew a little cold as he looked from the doctor’s insulted face to Gwen’s smug one.

“Gwen, there are copies of that Michael Hamilton statement on your desk,” he told her coldly. “He's still seeing Cybermen outside his mother's house. I thought you were supposed to deal with that case, oh, two days ago?”

“Okay, I'll phone Social Services, see if there's a history of mental illness,” Gwen left hurriedly, and Andy suppressed a giggle. Gwen Cooper not doing her job – that was really a big surprise… not!

As if he’d heard Andy’s thoughts, Jack turned to him. “And you, PC Davidson, would you kindly tell me what are you doing down here, in our supposedly secret base?”

“You could also ask Teaboy why he’d let him in,” Owen commented. “Although with Teaboy, you can never know. He does have the hang to smuggling people into the basement behind our backs, doesn’t he?”

“And you, Owen Harper, do have the hang to being a complete and utter bastard,” Toshiko replied quietly. “I wonder sometimes why we still put up with you. Jack’s right; it sure as hell isn’t for your charming personality.”

“Ianto let me in because he knows me,” Andy interrupted, before things could get really ugly. “Torchwood Three hasn’t started with your fairly new little team, doc; it has been there for a century and a half, and lots of other people have worked for it during that time,” he turned to Jack who was listening to him intently. “I assume you knew my uncle, sir? Meirion Gwynedd, the former archivist of this place?”

Jack nodded grimly. “I found his dead body down in the Archives myself. I’m surprised, though, that Torchwood One didn’t make you forget him entirely,” he said.

Andy shrugged. “They did a lousy job, apparently. They found my Mum but not me.”

“Apparently,” Jack agreed dryly; then he looked at Owen again. “Any new insights?”

“Not really,” the doctor admitted reluctantly. “PC Andy here seems to agree with me that this is an exit wound _without_ an entry wound, unlikely as it sounds, but other than that… We might check if there were any hospitals nearby two hundred years ago. Could have been someone died in an operation, considering the barbaric methods the used back then.”

“Or a Weevil simply bit his heart out,” Jack suggested.

Owen shook his head. “Nope. The wound would be larger, the damage much greater, had it been caused by a Weevil.”

“I wonder if there had been similar murders between their times and now,” Andy said thoughtfully. “Might be worth the try to check old, unsolved murder cases.”

“You have _that_ level of security clearance?” Jack asked in surprise.

Andy smiled. “Nah. But _you_ do.”

“Might bring something,” Jack allowed. “Perhaps Ianto was right about you. Okay, work with Owen on the case – see what you can find out.”

“Yes, sir,” Andy could barely keep his excitement under control. He was going to work for Torchwood Three, just like Uncle Meirion – and while keeping his daily job, too!

“This doesn’t mean I won’t still Retcon you back to kindergarten if I find it necessary,” Jack warned him.

“I understand, sir,” Andy replied. “But there won’t be need for that. You won’t regret letting me on the case, I promise.”

“I hope so,” Jack said dryly. “One bad choice pro year is the limit I can get away with.” He turned to leave the autopsy bay but stopped in the open door for a moment. “By the way, Tosh, I've just come from a really interesting conversation with a Detective Inspector Henderson.”

Toshiko made a really good job keeping a poker face. “You have?”

Jack nodded. “Interesting because, firstly, the man had the biggest hands I've ever seen, and secondly... because of the story he told me about you saving a woman and her kid from being murdered by her ex-husband.”

Toshiko shifted her weight uncomfortably. “Yeah, no, I was going to tell you about that.”

“So why didn't you?” Jack asked logically.

Toshiko shrugged. “I don't know, it wasn't a work thing, just a... thing thing. Stuff happens all the time that's not pertinent to here. Besides, when we came in – we’ve just come from the crime site – we got caught up with this whole skeleton examination, and I forgot about it.”

Jack looked at him intently, clearly not buying it. “You do this all the time?” he asked. “So you secretly fight crime, is that it, Tosh?”

“I didn't want it to look like I was showing off,” Toshiko replied, blushing.

“The guy they arrested, Henderson said you heard him muttering to himself as he was walking along, and that's what tipped you off,” Jack said, leaving the end of the sentence float as if it was a question.

Toshiko nodded. “Mm. I couldn't really work out what he was saying at first, and then it was like, _Jesus_!”

“She was _amazing_ ,” Andy commented. “Calm, level-headed, cool like a cucumber. Inspector Henderson was most impressed.”

“So am I, actually,” Jack said. “Well, I hope Henderson’s gonna send me a detailed report when they’ve finished the investigation, cos this is really something I wan to read.” 

That was said in a casual manner, and yet Toshiko seemed a bit uncomfortable. Andy didn’t blame her. Captain Harkness had the reputation to find out everything about things – or persons – that caught his interest.

“I’ll remind the inspector of that,” he said politely.

“Good,” Jack replied. “Now, let’s go on with our work, shall we? We still don’t know a single fact from this victim – or the gadget he was buried with. And somehow I’ve got the bad feeling that we don’t have much time to figure things out.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Andy followed Jack and Toshiko out of the autopsy bay into the main area of the Hub. Once there, Jack picked up the strange alien artefact found on the building site from one of the empty-looking workstations and turned it from one side to the other, trying to pull on certain bets.

“This is that gizmo, the one found together with the skeleton, isn’t it?” Andy asked. “I was wondering how you were getting on with this.” 

Jack shrugged, pulled at different its – without any visible results. “It's ongoing,” he replied absent-mindedly.

“Are you trying to dismantle it?” Toshiko asked. There was something in her voice that made Andy shoot her a quick glance. He saw that she was wearing that bloody pendant again – when had she put it on?”

“Like I said, it's ongoing,” Jack replied, not really paying her much attention. He was frowning at the uncooperative artefact. Andy, however, could see Toshiko touching the pendant well enough. Was that how she read other people’s minds? Was she doing it again? Was _he_ required to warn the others? Or did they know about it already? They were Torchwood, after all; creepy things were their area of expertise.

Suddenly Jack looked up and stared at Toshiko in surprise. She stared back at him, equally baffled. Andy wondered what the staring contest could mean. Had Jack caught her peeking? Could one realize when someone else was intruding their thoughts? Was that part of the regular Torchwood training, or was this a specific ability of the great Captain Harkness?

”What?” Jack finally asked. “Have I got something on my face? Is it food?”

Toshiko shook her head. “No. Sorry. I zoned out.”

But she was clearly hiding something – something that apparently frightened her – and Jack clearly realized that. Still, he didn’t dig any deeper. Not yet anyway. Andy was quite sure that he wouldn’t let Toshiko get away with it. Not in the long run.

“Well,” he said, “you did well today. Good work, Tosh. Now, if you could finish those lists for UNIT for me…”

“Already on it,” Tosh walked over to her workstation. 

Jack looked at Andy, his face unreadable, but somehow Andy knew that the enigmatic boss of Torchwood Three knew that he, too, was hiding something. Covering for her. At the moment, however, Jack didn’t pursue the issue.

“That one over there is Owen’s desk,” he said. “You can start the search already; we have a permanent link to the police databases. Owen will join you as soon as he’s shut the skeleton away.”


	5. Part Five

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
 **EPISODE 07 – GIFT HORSES, Part 5**

It took the doctor about twenty minutes to clean up the autopsy bay and join Andy at his own computer. He didn’t look any less efficient without the white lab coat, wearing a leather jacket. He sat down, flashing on the skeleton’s digital image, and started a search of his own, having the computer check Cardiff A & E for cases between 2000 and 2002... presumably from the time when he worked there, or so Andy guessed. Lots of names scrolled by in alphabetical order with numbers after them.

By that time, Andy was well into his own research program, trying to pick out all unsolved murder cases with unexplained chest traumata, as far back as there were any police records available.

“Jesus,” Owen breathed, seeing the amount of records scroll by on both screens. “You better call in, mate; we’re gonna be here for _days_!”

“I already have,” Andy replied; thanks to Toshiko’s bravery earlier on that day, Inspector Henderson was still in a magnanimous mode and allowed him to help out the Torchwood team. “I’m glad the records are digitally stored, at least. Imagine leafing through this amount of paper folders in some dusty archive.”

“That would be a job for Teaboy,” Owen commented.

“Actually,” Ianto said dryly, placing a mug of coffee in front of each one,” _my_ archives are digitalized, too. At least the case files are. It’s the bloody artefacts that need to be dug out manually every time.”

Owen gave the coffee mugs a suspicious look, noticing that the liquid in them hadn’t the same colour or texture.

“Since when do you know how PC Andy drinks his coffee?” he asked, almost accusingly.

Ianto shrugged. “Since Gwen started dragging him in whenever she needs something from the police. It’s called eidetic memory; I’m sure they mentioned it to you at medical school.”

He gave them a bland smile and glided out of the room elegantly, as if he’d been wearing skates. Owen glared at his retreating back with a scowl.

“One of these days I’m gonna wipe that stupid grin from his face!” he growled. “Who the fuck he thinks he is?”

“Someone who knows the Archives by heart and makes the best coffee on the planet?” Andy asked. “Leave him alone. He’s a nice bloke, if a bit weird.”

“A _bit_ weird?” Owen echoed incredulously. “Mate, you don’t know what you’re talking about! Teaboy nearly got us all killed, just a couple of weeks ago!”

Andy shrugged. “So he made a mistake; a grievous one, seeing how worked up you are about it. So what? We all make mistakes. Let’s hope he learned from it.”

“There are mistakes and there are _mistakes_ ,” Owen countered. “And then there’s such thing as lying to us and betraying us, putting the whole city at risk.”

“Must have been _some_ mistake,” Andy commented, hoping to learn more about it, but the doctor was cautious.

“You can say that,” was all he replied.

“Well, your boss didn’t fire him,” Andy pointed out, “so there must still be hope for him.”

“Cos Jack’s addicted to coffee,” Owen said darkly. “ _And_ he has the hots for Teaboy; had from the first day on.”

“As far as I can tell, your boss has the hots for anything on two legs,” Andy said, grinning. “Or has he sorted you out? Is _that_ why you’re so mad at Ianto? Is it jealousy?”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Owen snorted. “ _I’m_ not the one making cow eyes at Jack.”

“Nah,” Andy agreed. “ _That_ ’s definitely Gwen. Now, could we leave Ianto alone and get on with this bloody research? I still intend to get at least some shut-eye tonight.”

“You can forget _that_ ,” Owen gave the file numbers on the screen a sour look. “There’s no way we’re getting this done before tomorrow; and I’m not even speaking of an _early_ tomorrow here. There are hundreds of cases!”

“Perhaps if we cross-checked them with the Torchwood database, we can narrow down the search a little,” Andy suggested.

Owen looked at him in surprise.

“You know, that’s the first decent idea I’ve heard all day!” he said.

Andy shrugged. “Despite the impressions Gwen might have given you, police constables are _not_ selected on the basis of stupidity,” he said.

“I’m beginning to believe that,” Owen typed away on his keyboard furiously, starting the program to cross-check unsolved murder cases with the Torchwood archive files. “Let’s see where this brings us. I really hope you’re right about narrowing down the…”

He trailed off as the file numbers rearranged themselves on the screen. There were considerably less now, but still dozens of them… maybe a hundred or two.

“Still an awful lot,” Andy commented, “but it does look a little better now.”

Owen nodded. “Yeah. Let’s spill them between us, shall we? I’ll take them from A to K; you take from M to Zed.”

“Sounds reasonable,” Andy agreed, and Owen transferred the data for him to Gwen’s workstation.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Upstairs, in Jack’s office, Ianto slid a mug of his trademark, industrial strength coffee in front of his boss. The stuff could have held a spoon and would have classified as a means of chemical warfare in various countries of the planet.

“Coffee, sir?” he murmured politely.

Jack looked up from the alien gadget he was still fingering. His usually so bright blue eyes were clouded with worry.

“Thanks, Yan,” he said. “I really need this right now.”

“Problems with the artefact, sir?” Ianto inquired neutrally. He didn’t want to make the impression as if he’d be spying, but he did want to help, if he could.

Jack shrugged. “The problem is, I know I’ve seen something similar before. I just can’t remember what the hell it was,” he glanced at Ianto. “Any luck with the Archives?”

Ianto shook his head. “There were hints at similar artefacts, but those were all larger ones. I remember Torchwood One used to have a report of some sort of transport capsule that looked like a wrought metal cage – exactly like this thing, actually – but it said to have been able to take two persons, so it _had_ to be considerably bigger.”

“Not necessarily, if it belonged to an alien species that was either small by evolutional design or capable of changing the size and density of their bodies,” Jack reminded him. “And our found _did_ have traces of alien materials, even after two hundred or so years.”

“Point taken,” Ianto allowed. “But if this _is_ some kind of transporter device, there has to be a control mechanism somewhere.”

“Oh, I’m sure there is,” Jack said. “Those people, whoever they might be, _had_ to program it somehow. I just don’t have the faintest idea how to access it.”

“What about making a holographic scan; a three-dimensional one?” Ianto suggested. “Then I can run it through the digital archive. Compare it to similar devices in the database. Perhaps we’ll find an indication where the control panel is hidden.”

“Good idea!” Jack said, his enthusiasm returning. “A very good idea, in fact! When did you get so smart, Ianto Jones?”

Ianto rolled his eyes. “You know very well that I was a junior researcher at Torchwood One, sir. I used to do a bit more back there than preparing coffee, washing the dishes and putting away dead bodies.”

“I’m getting the impression that you’re doing a lot more than that even here,” Jack said. “The Archives are nowhere near the mess they used to be before you joined us.”

“Actually, sir, they weren’t in so much of a disarray as you might believe,” Ianto answered. “My predecessor – Constable Davidson’s uncle – used to keep them quite neat. The… mess you spoke about only started after his death. Especially when all that stuff your team has scavenged from the ruins of Torchwood London got dumped in, uncategorized.”

Jack shook his head in amusement. “Sometimes I believe this place would be drowned in chaos without you.”

“That, sir, is a correct assumption,” Ianto replied without false modesty. “Now, if you need any assistance with that holographic scanner…”

“Nah,” Jack made vague shooing gestures with one hand. “I’ll manage. Look up those other items in the database. I’ll transfer the image to your workstation when I’m gone.”

“Very good, sir,” Ianto collected the meanwhile empty coffee mug – sometimes he wondered if Jack absorbed the stuff by osmosis or by applied psychokinesis – and returned to his workstation.

 _After_ he’d washed out the mug and cleaned the coffee machine, of course. A man had to set his priorities properly.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Approximately five hours later, Andy and Owen were still cross-referencing murder cases with the Torchwood database. Needless to say that the latter was a lot more detailed and thorough concerning weird murder cases – plus, it went back in time much longer.

“I’ve found here a case named Marmer,” Andy said, accepting the umpteenth mug of coffee from Ianto, who had periodically appeared with refreshments during the evening. “Heart removed. This says records and post-mortem passed to Operation Lowry… whatever _that_ is.”

“Operation Lowry is a codename for unsolved murders, all committed in similar fashion,” Ianto explained, placing a mug in front of Owen.

Owen glared up at him in suspicion. “And why would _you_ know about such things?”

Ianto shrugged. “I’m the archivist here. I know all codenames by heart. In fact, I’ve even _created_ quite a few of them. It’s all part of my job, in case you haven’t realized yet.”

“And how do I get access to these case files?” Owen asked, his annoyance obvious.

“By asking the archivist nicely,” Ianto replied. “Oh, wait… that would be me, right? My, but that could be a problem, considering you’ll need a specific Torchwood security clearance for that. One that only Jack can give you. Or me.”

“I see,” Owen said snidely. “And what do I have to get the bloody clearance? Grovel at your feet?”

“Actually,” Ianto answered, completely unfazed by the doctor’s hostile attitude, “a simple, polite request would do. I’m not unreasonable – bare extraordinary circumstances.”

“Like hiding your cyber… your homicidal girlfriend in the basement?” Owen snapped.

Ianto held his glare without as much as a twitch of his eyelashes.

“That would be such a circumstance, yes,” he replied simply. “Now, do you need the clearance or not?”

“You know that I do!” Owen fumed. “You’re just enjoying…”

“Then _ask_ ,” Ianto interrupted. It was undeniably a bit childish, but Andy couldn’t really blame him for giving the doctor a hard time. One couldn’t be rude and insulting to people on a regular basis and except them _not_ to indulge in a little retaliation.

Owen rolled his eyes. “Okay, Teaboy, you won. So, could we _please_ get the clearance for the fucking case files?”

“I wouldn’t call _that_ polite, but for the good of Torchwood, yes, you can,” Ianto leaned in from Andy’s left and hit a few keys on Gwen’s keyboard.

The picture of the skeleton zoomed closer immediately, and a dialogue panel appeared in the middle of the screen, saying: “ _Torchwood Clearance Code 45895. Please add codename._ ” Ianto stepped away from Gwen’s (formerly Suzie’s and now temporarily Andy’s) computer.

“It’s all yours,” he said simply, but didn’t leave the room. Perhaps he was curious, too.

Andy typed “Operation Lowry” into the search field and hit Enter. A new window opened, showing lots of different dead people, all with gaping exit wounds in their chests. On the left side of the screen, the cause of death was noted for each victim, who were labelled only with their case file numbers. 

“Heart removed,” Owen whispered. “Heart removed. Removed... How far back _does_ this go?”

Ianto checked the dates. “The oldest case is dated from 1883… only a couple of years after the foundation of Torchwood Cardiff,” he replied. “That’s a bit… unsettling. Whatever killed these people clearly has been around for more than a century… or longer.”

“Look at their faces!” Andy whispered in horror.

Most of the victims didn’t have much of a face left – some even were just text case files, without any picture at all – but one thing was the same on all photos. Their mouths were wide open, as if they had been screaming in horror in the moment of their undoubtedly violent deaths.

“This is… this is completely impossible,” Owen stared at the screen, shocked. “They all had identical deaths, with identical expressions on their faces… We need Tosh to extend the research. Perhaps UNIT has more cases in their archives.”

“Tosh’s gone home hours ago,” Ianto informed him. “Jack wanted her to rest after today’s excitement.”

“Where’s Jack then?” Owen asked.

“Out on some kind of roof, I reckon,” Ianto replied with a shrug. “It’s that kind of night again.”

“What do you mean?” Andy asked with a frown. “Is he suicidal or what?” He couldn’t understand how these two could be so calm about their boss standing atop of some skyscraper in the middle of the night. Were they nuts?

“No,” Ianto explained. “It means brooding time. Which he usually spends on the roof of some obscenely high building, as he has no fear from great heights.”

“Why would he do that?” Andy asked, a little bewildered.

Ianto shrugged. “Brings him closer to the stars, he says. Plus, it’s unlikely that he’d be bothered _there_.”

“Well, though shit,” Owen snapped. “This time he’ll just have to deal with _being_ bothered.”

“If he has a mobile phone on him at all,” Andy said.

“Jack never goes anywhere without his headset,” Owen replied. “Sometimes I think he even sleeps with the bloody thing… am I right, Teaboy?”

“I’m not entirely sure,” Ianto answered. “But I intend to find out.”

“Do you now?” Owen said nastily. “And why is that?”

“Cos it’s my job to know everything that happens within the Hub,” Ianto replied simply. “You call Jack. I’ll be in the Archives if you need me; still have a search of my own to complete.”

“Thanks, but we’re doing just fine without you,” Owen told his already retreating back.

Andy grinned. “Were you implying that the two shag each other?”

“Well, it’s a fact that Jack is gay,” Owen replied with a shrug. “If Tosh were right and he’d really shag anything that’s gorgeous enough, he’d never have been able to keep his hands off Gwen.”

Andy looked at him with genuine pity. “Only you would describe Gwen Cooper as gorgeous, doc,” he said. “She’s many things, among them selfish and easy, but gorgeous… _that_ ’s a vastly different category.”

“What do _you_ know?!” Owen scoffed.

“I know _exactly_ what I’m talking about,” Andy replied, “and so does half the police station. Trust me, you aren’t the first… erm… stress relief in her life – nor are you gonna be the last one. Now, weren’t you gonna phone that boss of yours?”

Owen gave him a decidedly unfriendly glare but pulled out his mobile phone and hit the speed dial nonetheless.

“Jack?” he said when the call was picked up on the other end of the connection. “Get your arse back here; you need to see this.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
“So, what have you found?” Jack asked half an hour later, leaning over Andy’s shoulder.

“Dozens of similar cases,” Owen replied grimly. “One hundred and sixty-two documented ones, to be accurate. From as long back as the foundation of Torchwood Three, at the very least. We have no idea if there were even more before… or if there are other cases we don’t even know about.”

“Operation Lowry, huh?” Jack looked at the data. “I remember when Aristide Lowry put together that collection; it was gruesome work no-one else could have gone through with. He must have had an iron stomach, the old chap. How I could have failed to associate our skeleton with those cases is beyond me. I should have remembered.”

“Perhaps because the skeleton is older than all the documented cases?” Andy supplied.

Jack shook his head. “That’s an explanation but no excuse. I _should_ have remembered,” he looked at Owen. “What made you think of checking the A  & E records, though?”

“The fact that our victim apparently had his heart removed,” Owen explained. “It reminded me of that girl…”

“What girl?” Andy asked.

“Some murder victim,” Owen replied. “I’d only been qualified six months when they brought her into the hospital, with a big, gaping wound in her chest, her face twisted into a mask of pure agony. She couldn’t have been older than seventeen; I wanted to throw up. Never seen anything like that before.”

“Must have been one hell of an initiation for your later career,” Jack said. “After that, facing what we’re doing here all the time couldn’t have been much of a surprise.”

“Not really,” Owen admitted. “So we apparently have an alien on the loose – an alien with an unhealthy appetite for human hearts; one who’s been murdering people for at least two hundred years. How the hell did it manage to remain under the radar for so long?”

“Perhaps it’s a shapeshifter,” Jack replied with a shrug. “Or it’s capable of jumping from host body to host body like that alien gas thing Gwen managed to release on her first day at work for Torchwood.”

Andy’s eyes widened in surprise. “She did _what_? Man, you have to tell me the whole story! I so need some blackmail material against her!”

“Later,” Jack said impatiently. “In my opinion, the key to this whole mystery is the alien artefact we’ve found on the building site. I’ve set Ianto to search for similar founds in the Archives. Let’s hope something will turn up.”

“You really think there would me more such… such gizmos?” Andy asked doubtfully.

Jack shrugged. “It has been my experience that similar things tend to turn up from time to time here. Two hundred years are a long enough time, statistically, for that to happen. Anyway, I’ll be in my office, trying to figure out how this thing works and what makes it tick. You can go home when you’re finished with your search, but be back in time tomorrow.”

“That would be today,” Owen commented sourly. “Not that it would be the first time, of course. Sometimes I wonder why I still keep my flat.”

“That’s Torchwood for you,” Jack answered.

“Do you want me to come back, too?” Andy asked hopefully.

Jack grinned. “Well, you’re in on the case; you can as well help finish it. I’ll clear it with your superiors.”

“Awww, thanks!” Andy was pleasantly surprised. He thought he’d have to fight harder for the right to eventually see the case solved.

“Thank me when we’ve all gotten out of this mess unharmed,” Jack warned him, and then ran up the staircase to his office.

Owen sighed. “Well, mate, let’s get to work. The sooner we finish this bloody search, the earlier we can get out of here and into a bed – which I, for my part, begin to feel a definite need for.”


	6. Part Six

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
 **EPISODE 07 – GIFT HORSES, Part 6**

Andy could barely sleep that night and arrived way too early to the Torchwood base. The tourist office wasn’t even open yet. But after just a few minutes of indecisive waiting, Ianto stepped out of nowhere to greet him – or so it seemed.

“You’re early,” the Torchwood archivist said. “The others aren’t even in yet. Well, save from Jack, that is, but he kinda lives here, so he doesn’t count.”

“I thought _you_ were the one who lived here,” Andy said.

“Well, sometimes I have that impression, too,” Ianto admitted. “But I actually _do_ have a flat, not too far from here. I even go home to sleep from time to time.”

“Not last night, though,” Andy guessed, based on the younger man’s reddened eyes,

“No,” Ianto admitted. “That, too, happens. Now, since I haven’t opened the tourist office yet, I came to take you down the direct way.”

“There’s another entrance?” Andy asked in surprise.

“Only if someone lets you in from the inside,” Ianto replied. “Come on, stand next to me. It only works when we both stand on this particular slab.”

“What works only…” Andy started to ask, but Ianto didn’t listen to him.

“Take us in, Jack,” he said into his headset, and in the next moment the concrete block they were standing on began to sink with them, slowly but steadily.

Andy quickly grabbed Ianto's arm to keep his balance. “But how do you use this thing when the Plass is full of people?” he asked.

“The same way we’re doing now,” Ianto answered with a shrug. “They can’t see us. Well, they can, sort of, but we don't quite register. Just like something in the corner of your eye. It's called a perception filter. It only works on this exact spot.”

“Wow! Way cool!” Andy exclaimed, already down to street level to his ears. “How does it work?”

“I’m not really sure,” Ianto admitted. “We know how to use it, not how it happens. Jack likes to tell people that there was once a dimensionally transcendental chameleon-circuit placed right on this spot, which welded its perception properties to a spatio-temporal rift.”

“Yeah, sure,” Andy said doubtfully.

Ianto grinned. “Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? That’s why we simply call it invisible lift. Bottom line is, there must be some sort of alien technology at work, which isn’t documented in the Archives – at least I haven’t found any description so far – but it has been working for at least a hundred years, as far as I know. Don’t worry, it’s quite safe.”

“I’m not worried,” Andy declared. “I’m… overwhelmed.”

“You’ll get used to it,” Ianto replied. “That is, if I finally manage to talk Jack into hiring you as a freelance agent. This way.”

When they exited the lift, the Hub was empty and almost eerily quiet, save from the screeches of some huge winged creature that was circling around, right under the ceiling.

“What’s _that_?” Andy asked. “It’s too big to be a bird.”

“Oh, that’s just Myfanwy,” Ianto answered with a dismissive shrug. “Our pterodactyl. Somehow she found her way through the Rift and has got trapped here.” He looked at Andy searchingly. “Your uncle has mentioned the Rift to you, I presume?”

Andy nodded. “It was one of his favourite stories. Made it sound like mad sci-fi, though, so I never guessed it was a real thing, until Gwen joined you lot. So, pterodactyl? And you keep it as a pet?”

“Well, the local zoos aren’t exactly equipped to deal with dinosaurs,” Ianto said.

“And _you_ are?” Andy shook his head in amazement.

“We’re… highly adaptive,” Ianto replied. “I was just about to feed her when you arrived. Would you mind to watch the CCTV for me while I do it? You can use Gwen’s workstation again. Usually, it’s her job – assuming she manages to arrive on time.”

“And how often does _that_ happen?” Andy had an educated guess about that, remembering what it had been like when the two of them had still been partners.

“Once out of five days, approximately,” Ianto said. “Are you sure you don’t mind…?”

“Nah, I’m used to do her job aside from my own,” Andy sat down at the state-of-the-art terminal that was so far beyond the antiquated equipment the police was forced to work with that it wasn’t even funny. “What am I supposed to watch out for?”

“For anyone else but Gwen, Owen or Tosh trying to get in,” Ianto replied. “Jack and I have figured out last night what purpose that alien thing might serve, and there’s a distinct possibility that our killer would want to retrieve it.”

“Really?” Andy felt positively galvanized. “What else have you found out? Are you allowed to tell me?”

“Later,” Ianto looked up to the pterodactyl whose circles were visibly narrowing now. “Survival instinct tells me that the feeding of Myfanwy is top priority at the moment. I’ll be back in no time with coffee, and then we can talk.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Ianto didn’t come back as immediately as promised. Andy could see him enter Jack’s office with the obligatory coffee but didn’t leave again. As far as it could be seen from the lower level, they were working on that alien gadget again. They really must have made a breakthrough last night. Andy wondered if he’d ever learn the whole truth about this weird case or would end up with a hole worth of two or three days in his memory.

About half an hour later Owen arrived via invisible lift (Andy was still trying to wrap his mind about the mere concept of such a thing), and then Gwen, only fourteen minutes late. Which was early for her, assuming that her behaviour hadn’t changed since leaving the police.

“Where’s Tosh?” she asked, almost accusingly; then she glared at Andy. “And what are _you_ doing at _my_ computer?”

“I’m doing _your_ job, unless I was informed mistakenly,” Andy replied. “It’s like old times, eh?”

“Some things apparently don’t change,” Owen commented. “But really, where _is_ Tosh? It’s not like her to be late.”

“That’s right,” Jack said, stepping out onto the walkway, alien gadget still in his hands. “And I’ve learned to become _very_ suspicious when a friend suddenly starts behaving out of character. Perhaps PC Andy here can tell us something about the company Tosh has been keeping lately?”

“Me?” Andy asked, a little nervously. He didn’t want to reveal anything Toshiko had told him in confidence, but he had the feeling that those bright blue eyes of Captain Jack Harkness could see right through him.

Jack shrugged. “You seem to have spent a lot of time with her lately. If you know something, you should tell us _now_. It’s in her best interest, cos I have the feeling that she’s been under some unhealthy influence in these days… and it hasn’t been _you_. At least I don’t think so.”

“There isn’t much I can tell you,” Andy replied evasively. “All I know is that she’s seeing some chick she met in a bar… a Mary something. I never got her surname.”

“I seriously doubt she’d have one,” Jack said grimly. “At least not one we’d recognize. What does this Mary person look like?”

“Slim, blonde, smokes a lot… tends to wear very short skirts,” Andy answered, not quite sure what to say. He’d only ever got a glimpse from the woman he considered… well, _competition_.

“Like the one just entering the tourist office with Tosh?” Owen, who was watching the CCTV monitor, asked.

“What?” Ianto whirled around to glare at the screen as well. “I haven’t even opened yet!”

“Yeah, but Tosh has a key,” Owen reminded him. “I’m a bit stunned that she’d bring a complete stranger in there, though. She ought to know better.”

“She _does_ know better,” Jack said. “But we all do stupid – or dangerous – things out of love sometimes.”

Everybody studiously avoided looking at Ianto, but the hint was clear, even to Andy, who didn’t know _what_ was being hinted at. Ianto stared at the monitor, stone-faced, but the darkening of his eyes spoke volumes.

The Hub alarms went off as the cog door rolled open and Toshiko hurried in, followed by a blonde woman in an extremely short, purple skirt and a top that left nothing to imagination. _Absolutely_ nothing. Strangely enough, Andy didn’t find the sight particularly appealing. Perhaps because he’d watched the woman act around Toshiko suspiciously for a while.

The blonde caught Toshiko just as she was trying to pass.

“Be quick,” she said, running a hand down Toshiko’s face, who shivered under her touch. “I've a long journey ahead of me.” Her voice became strangely distorted as she added. “I might need something to eat before I go.” 

Toshiko smiled at her tremulously; then she nodded and hurried up to Jack, who was still standing on the walkway, holding that alien… thing in his hands.

“This what you're looking for?” Jack asked, starting to walk towards them slowly. He looked at Mary. “I'm sorry, we haven't been introduced. Jack Harkness. My guess is you're not from around these parts. Now this...” he held the alien gadget just a little higher, “this is incredible. You know what it is?”

“It's a transporter,” Toshiko answered. “Mary was a political prisoner – she was exiled here. Look, Jack...”

”You've got half of it right,” Jack interrupted. “Mary... It is Mary, isn't it? You want to tell her the really interesting bit? No? Chatty, isn't she? I don't know how you got a word in edgeways, Tosh.”

There was a brief, tense pause between the three of them. Andy could see Owen prepare to lounge at the woman and Gwen staring at them in that stupid, cow-eyed manner that revealed to everyone who knew her that she didn’t have a clue what was going on. Not that _that_ would have been surprising.

“It's a two-man transporter,” Jack continued in a calm, even voice. “Or whatever you people may be,” he added, turning his attention back to Mary. “You might be squids, for all I know. A two-squid transporter. Room for one prisoner and one guard. You want to tell us what happened to the guard, Mary?”

The blonde shrugged nonchalantly. “I killed him. But I was disturbed. By a woman who happened to walk across us. So I’ve just taken over her body. Best disguise possible. Makes people believe you’re one of them.”

Jack nodded. “I can see how that can come in handy.”

Mary gave him a broad, inhuman grin. “You’ve got no idea… Then another came – a soldier. He tried to shoot me,” she snorted derisively. “So I plunged my new human hand into his chest and plucked out his heart.”

”And that's what you've been doing ever since,” Owen growled. “Dozens of times… hundreds.”

Mary shrugged again. “This form needs to be fed.”

Owen shook his head in shocked disbelief. “All the punctures were all about the size of a fist. My God, all those people. You killed all those people.”

Mary ignored him, her eyes going vacant with memories. “I fled before any more soldiers came. I had so much to explore! And how I loved this body. So soft. So wicked. The power such a body has in this world. Within a few years the forest had gone, transporter was safely buried under the spread of the city. I didn't care; I wasn't exactly in a hurry to get home.”

“And you've been killing ever since,” Jack finished for her.

“I knew there might come a time when my situation here became… _complicated_ ,” Mary replied with another shrug. “But I was safe, as long as I knew where the transporter was.

“Look the way she stares at you with those eyes,” Gwen whispered, her breath hot on Andy’s nape. “She's like an animal.”

Which was a surprisingly accurate statement from someone like Gwen Cooper. Perhaps there _was_ something in the theory that in grave danger one developed unexpected abilities. Too bad that the effect was said to be temporary.

“And then the machine was uncovered,” Jack said.

Mary nodded. “As soon as the air touched its surface, I could feel it. I hurried to the building site, but you guys were faster. You got there before me. It was most… inconvenient, I must say.”

“And then you picked Tosh as the means to get it back,” Jack continued. It wasn’t really a question, but Mary nodded anyway.

“My beautiful Toshiko,” she said half-mockingly. “She was such an easy target, the poor lamb. You’ve made it so easy for me, all of you – belittling her, excluding her, giving her menial tasks… she was ripe for the plucking.”

“And so you gave her that bloody pendant, to make her more docile!” Andy spat angrily.

Those luminous, inhuman eyes turned to him, seizing him up in malevolent delight. She didn’t seem the least afraid, surrounded by several people, all hostile towards her, some of them possibly armed. She just stood there and talked to them, mocking them.

“Are you jealous, young man?” she added sweetly. “Well, I’m ever so sorry… have you gotten there earlier, she might not been perceptive to my seduction, but you were late. Your loss – my gain. Cos I’m not gonna let you have her.”

Before Andy could have reacted in any way, two things happened simultaneously. Owen lounged to attack Mary, who moved away with superhuman speed, grabbed Toshiko, pulled out a nasty-looking knife and held it to her throat. The knife, Andy realized, had incisors on the blade. One bad move and it could tear Toshiko's throat out.

He also realized that Toshiko was wearing that bloody pendant again. When had he put it on? It hadn’t been on her when she’d entered the Hub!

“Let her go, Mary!” Jack said in a warning tone. How could he be so calm? As if it hadn’t bothered him at all to see Toshiko in mortal danger! 

For the first time in all his years of service, Andy deeply regretted that police constables didn’t go armed to the teeth. Had he a gun on him, he could save Toshiko now. Unlike most of his colleagues, he was a crack shot. Practiced on the shooting range every week. But right now, he had nothing more threatening on his person than a Swiss Army knife.

“Toshiko, tell them to give me the transporter!” Mary ordered.

Toshiko swallowed hard, causing the blade to scrape the soft skin of her throat. “I can't, Mary.” A thin streak of blood began to trickle down her throat where the knife nicked it.

Ianto closed his eyes for a moment, his pain palpable. “Not again,” he whispered, audibly only for Andy, and only because they happened to stand close to each other. “Please, God, not again.” 

Andy had no idea what he was talking about, but it couldn’t have been a good memory.

“How's this?” Mary challenged Jack. “I'll exchange Toshiko for _that_ one,” she nodded towards Gwen, who was still staring at her open-mouthed. “Your choice.”

Owen’s eyes widened in panic at that offer – despite all that snapping and bickering, he apparently did have feelings for Gwen, after all – and Mary grinned that broad, inhuman grin of hers again.

“Did you hear him?” she asked Toshiko. “He didn't want to, did he? He’d sacrifice _you_ but wouldn’t endanger _her_. See what you’re worth for him – for them all?”

“What?” Owen shouted, forgetting the dangerous situation for a moment in his outrage. “She read my thoughts? She actually read my bloody thoughts?”

“Please, don't...” Toshiko begged; Andy wasn’t sure whom.

“That's what they think of you,” Mary hissed in Toshiko’s ear nastily. “That's who you've been working with for all these years.”

”It's not true, Tosh,” Owen protested. “Don't listen to her!”

“But not me,” Mary continued, as if the doctor hadn’t said a thing, her voice acquiring that distorted, singsong quality again. “Whatever I've done, it doesn't change the way I feel about you. We have a connection, Toshiko, something _real_.”

But Andy could tell that Toshiko wasn’t listening to Mary anymore. She was staring at Jack; there was definitely some kind of communication going on between the two of them. After a moment Toshiko signalled her consent by closing her eyes briefly, as she couldn’t nod, due to the knife still held to her throat.

“Okay,” Jack said, seemingly coming to a decision. “You want the transporter, we want Toshiko. I think that's a fair swap.”

“Jack, for God’s sake, you can’t negotiate with terrorists!” Gwen intervened angrily. “Let me handle this! I've been trained for hostage situations…”

 _And failed in each and every simulation quite spectacularly_ , Andy added in thought, now seriously worried about Toshiko’s life. Still the idea of setting a murderous alien free disagreed with his own training.

“Keep the knife and I'll give you the transporter myself,” Jack said, ignoring Gwen’s indignant sputtering.

“Is he just going to let her go?” Andy whispered to Ianto.

“I think it's a bluff,” Ianto breathed, “and with Jack pulling it, it might even work.”

Jack slowly, carefully approached Mary, allowing her to grab the transporter but not letting go of it just yet. They stood alarmingly close, Toshiko wisely using her chance to slip out from between them. She rushed over to Ianto, who simply hugged her and held her, allowing her shaking to cease gradually.

Andy would have given an arm to be in Ianto’s place right now.

Mary didn’t pay them any attention. She was focusing on Jack completely, sniffing him in a manner that was as far from discreet as humanly – or inhumanly – possible.

“You smell... different to them,” she murmured, her tone revealing that she found the difference quite appealing.

“That's nothing,” Jack returned with one of those almost-too-bright smiles of his. “It's when you compare teeth with a British guy's, that's when it's really scary.”

“Who are you?” Mary asked. “You’re not one of them… and yet you aren’t a completely different species, either. _What_ are you?”

“I don't know,” Jack replied simply, making the little cogwheels in Andy’s head whirl like crazy. According to Uncle Meirion, Jack Harkness had been working for Torchwood Three for how long? Decades? Longer? How came he didn’t seem any older than in those stories Andy’s uncle told about him twenty years ago?

Mary looked at Jack, shaking her head. “And you would have put _me_ in a cage? Have you ever considered what they’d do to _you_ , once they recognized your true nature?” 

“That’s my problem to deal with,” Jack replied with a shrug and let go of the transporter. Something within its metal wickerwork began to hum in a low tune.

Mary frowned. “What's happening?”

”Oh, that,” Jack waved nonchalantly. “I re-programmed it for you. It's set to enable. You can leave any time you want.”

But before Mary could have hit the start button, Gwen stepped between the two of them and got hold of the transporter.

“I can’t allow this, Jack!” she declared in that lecturing tone she always used when trying to tell smarter and more experienced people what in her opinion they ought to do; the tone that had made everyone hate her at the police station. “This… this _creature_ has murdered dozens of people, hundreds perhaps during the last two hundred years. We can’t simply let her go.”

To everyone’s absolute shock, Mary began to flow and performed a metamorphosis, becoming a slippery, shiny thing with the face of a Roswell alien and long, sinuous tentacles wriggling around her head and in the place of her fingers.

“I don’t think you’d have a say in this, sweetheart,” it said in a strange, distorted voice. “But you can come with me if you wish to. I might need some food on my long journey, and fresh from the source is always the best.”

“Gwen, let her go!” Jack ordered in a hard, authoritative voice that made Andy snap to attention involuntarily. Gwen, however, wasn’t one to give up easily, direct order or no direct order.

“No, Jack,” she said stubbornly. “I can’t do that.”

“You don’t have to,” the creature song-songed. “The capsule has place for two; even if one traveller only serves as a convenient food source,”

It touched something in the heart of the machine, and it began to glow eerily, giving a quiet, beeping noise. Then there was a bright flash of light, and in the next moment both creature and capsule were gone.

From Gwen, only a pile of pale ash remained in the middle of the Hub’s concrete floor.

Toshiko, still standing wrapped in Ianto’s arms, teary-eyed and shaking, looked at Jack. “What did she…?”

“She activated the transporter,” Jack replied simply. “Unfortunately for Gwen, human flesh isn’t made to endure this kind of travelling.”

“What about Mary?” Toshiko asked. “Has she gone home?”

Jack shook his head. “That’s rather unlikely. I reset the co-ordinates.”

“You did? Where to? “

“To the centre of the Sun,” Jack said. “It shouldn't be hot. I mean, we sent her there in the early morning and everything.”

Toshiko’s eyes teared up again. “You killed her.”

“Yes,” Jack answered in a rather hard voice. Then he looked at Ianto. “Go with Tosh into the meeting room. Make notes of every detail she can remember. This is a species we haven’t met before, but if Torchwood One’s records are any indication, they’ve visited Earth repeatedly. I want them researched as thoroughly as possible. Next time, we need to be ready for them.”

Ianto nodded and left, shepherding a softly sniffling Toshiko on their way out. Jack sighed; then he turned to Andy.

“Ianto has been hounding me to hire you as a freelance agent for a while; it seems he was right about you. You do have the skills to make a Torchwood agent, and you’re apparently capable of teamwork – I value that. We’ve got a vacancy right now. Are you interested?”

“Jack!” Owen protested. “Are you gonna replace Gwen just like…”

“Like I replaced Suzie?” Jack asked. “Yes, I am. What else could I possibly do? We can’t run this place with only four people, especially with Ianto doing two different jobs already. Besides, it was her own damn fault. Without her self-righteous stupidity, she could have gotten out of this mess without a scratch. So yeah, we do need a new agent, and I intend to hire one. I hope I’m gonna make a better choice this time. Well, Andy, what do you say?”

“Oh, I _am_ interested all right,” Andy said. “But I’d rather keep my job at the police. That way, I could pass on information unofficially both ways, without being completely absorbed by Torchwood. I’d like to keep at least part of my life, if it’s possible.”

Jack nodded. “That’s acceptable. As long as you help us out with field missions, we can manage as a four-man team. Until we get someone better suited than Gwen was, that is. But we’ll keep you as a freelance agent anyway. You’ve proved yourself, and having one of our own within the police would not only be convenient, it would also relieve Ianto from dealing with them.”

“It’s a deal,” Andy glanced at Gwen’s rather unspectacular remains and sighed. “Well, I’ll have to call Rhys; and Gwen’s parents, too. If I only knew what to tell them…”

“Wait until tonight and we’ll come up with a convincing story as well as a corpse,” Jack said. “We’ll even arrange the funeral. No one needs to know that there’ll be a false corpse in the coffin. Owen, put the ashes away and go home. Ianto and I will take care of the rest.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
The funeral of Torchwood agent (formerly Police Constable) Gwen Cooper was a simple yet moving one – with a _very_ small crowd gathered around the sealed casket that, in truth, contained the hurriedly unfreezed corpse of some unfortunate homeless person, who’d died in some freak accident and had been made unrecognizable for exactly such purposes. Standard Torchwood procedure, as Ianto had explained to Andy. 

The official cause of death was that Gwen had been unfortunate enough to catch some particularly virulent, flesh-eating virus that had damaged her too badly to be publicly shown. Considering all the weird illnesses surfacing unexpectedly in recent years, no-one questioned that reasoning. Of course, the perfectly dosed Retcon, served in the coffee courtesy of one Mr. Ianto Jones, helped the story forward considerably.

After the funeral, Toshiko and Andy were sitting in that old-fashioned little pub again, reflecting on the recent events.

“You know what the worst thing is?” Toshiko asked, nursing her drink, her eyes dry but full of suppressed pain. “Even when I didn't have the pendant on… even when there was nothing, I couldn't forget the things I've seen… the things I've heard. It was like a curse, something the gods sent to drive someone mad. I had… I _hoped_ I'd see something… some little random act of kindness, that could make me think we were safe, that there was some essential good in us…”

“And…?” Andy asked gently.

She looked at him with those haunted eyes of hers. “There wasn’t any.”

“None at all?” Andy asked. “Are we truly all so horrible?”

She hesitated for a moment, remembering what she’d seen in his thoughts, the one time he’d invited her to take a look. “No,” she finally said. “Not all. But it was still… still horrible. What I did was an invasion. I wasn't in control, I realise that now. But even so, I can't... I have to live with this. Not what I heard, but what I did to you... to all those the privacy of whom I’ve violated.”

“Perhaps,” Andy said. “But don’t let it get to you. We all make mistakes. It’s… it’s only human. Where’s the pendant now?”

“I destroyed it,” Toshiko answered quietly. “Jack allowed me to make the choice, and I found it was the safest thing to do. It seemed like such a small thing, but it could have been the most devastating weapon we ever encountered. It could have torn down governments, wiped out armies. Mankind isn’t ready for dealing with such a thing yet. Perhaps never will be.”

“You’re probably right,” Andy said. “I’m glad you had the strength to give it up, though. Not everyone would have.”

“I know,” she said. “There was something Mary said… Probably the only honest thing she ever did say. I asked her why she gave it to me. And she said, 'After a while it gets to you. It changes how you see people’. Jack meant I only got a snapshot, nothing more… but even that was too much. I wasn’t _meant_ to know those things.”

“Most likely not,” Andy agreed. “But there’s no use to torture yourself about it now. Snapshots can fade, given enough time, and you have to look into the future, not into the past.”

“Owen is really mad at me,” Toshiko whispered dejectedly.

Andy shrugged. “Given the way he’d already treated you _before_ he knew anything about the pendant, I’d say he doesn’t have the right to occupy the moral high ground. Besides, it was clear even without any alien mind-reading device that he was shagging Gwen, so… just ignore him. Come on, it was a long couple of days. I’ll drive you home.”

“You don’t have to, you know,” Toshiko murmured. “It’s not such a long way. I often walk to work.”

“I know,” he smiled at her, “but I’d like to. Don’t you wanna make a simple police officer happy?”

For a moment, Toshiko seemed to hesitate. Then she smiled – it was a very weak smile, but a smile nevertheless – and accepted his gentlemanly arm.

“All right,” she said. “Let’s go.”

~The End – for now~


End file.
